Red VS Tai (Pokémon VS Digimon)

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(TWILTY)

(SpaceJellO)

(Rina Antiqua)

Red, the Pokémon champion of Kanto from Pokémon’s first generation

Taichi and Agumon, the Chosen Children duo of Courage from Digimon Adventure.

Bonds are always something that have been encouraged throughout time. Whether it be between family, friends, pets, and loved ones in general, the media has always depicted the power of bonds as something truly incredible, something that can manifest miracles that can triumph over any threat. And what better example than the relations boasted between a kid and his monster(s), showcased by two of the biggest monster tamer franchises?

With both Pokémon and Digimon having had their beginnings in the 1990s in the origins of Pokémon Red & Blue on the Nintendo Gameboy (Or Pocket Monsters: Red & Green if you were in Japan) and the Digital Monster Virtual Pet toyline which kickstarted the Digimon franchise and thus the Digimon Adventure anime, we'll be looking across Red and Taichi’s stories from beginning to end, and figure out which monster tamer franchise's first protagonists can truly come out on top. Will Red and his Pokémon pocket a win? Or will this be yet another adventure for Taichi and Agumon to overcome?

Before We Start…

We will be focusing on the mainline game continuity for Red since that’s where he originates from and is the most iconic. This means no alternate feats or lore from other canons like the Pokémon anime and manga. That being said, Pokémon Origins is very faithful to the game, so that’ll be included (though mainly for image purposes). For a full list of games we’re going to use, click here. A small elephant in the room is Pokémon Masters EX. Just to be clear, no SCALING to Masters will be allowed as that’s an alternative version of Red in a different continuity (IE. he’s not going to scale to Ash and anime feats just because he’s in there nor other characters in the game), but character details are fine since they were made to be as faithful as possible in the game. As for abilities and forms exclusive to the mobile game, we’ll include them for completionist sake, but they will not play a major factor in the verdict (and we’ll specify as such).

Important to get out of the way immediately however is Red’s Pokémon roster. While this is obviously a reexamination of the 2015 Death Battle, we will not be restricting Red to just his Charizard. As he is only one of Red’s signature monsters, with Red being able to carry a whole team of six at all times. It should be noted that while Red has a “canon” team with the Johto/Alola games, we’re taking Red at his hypothetical best and listing other notable Pokémon he’s caught in other games/Origins. That being said, there is far less reason to bend the rules compared to say, Ash vs Yugi, so Red will still only be able to carry 6 Pokémon at a time and send out one at a time because that’s how it works in the games. Nothing unfair or out of character here, folks!

For Taichi, we will be focusing on the primary anime continuity based around the original 1999-2000 Digimon Adventures show. This includes the show in question, the novels, the follow up 2002 show, the Tri and Kizuna anime movies, and the Wonderswan games. There’s also a 2020 Adventures reboot, which’ll be analyzed more hesitantly but still acknowledged for anything relevant. Other major Digimon continuities not canon to Taichi’s own adventures will not be included (so no cross scaling via the Xros Wars crossover or Re:Digitize as that’s an alternative continuity with an alternative Tai. However, traits that would hypothetically apply regardless of continuity such as physiology will be considered.) We’re aware of the PSP game crossover too. While the game itself is not off limits for supplemental information, the crossover is not being allowed for similar reasons Red’s not getting Masters as it’s an alternative Tai…with a lot of caveats (more info here on both so the main blog can have more focus on Adventures). That being said, while Tai can’t rely on alternative continuities today, we will at least look at the Digimon Reference Book for more info. Also, Taichi will not be allowed to use Omegamon as that requires Yamato’s help with Gabumon which is outside help, though Agumon’s other standard forms are fair game.

Also recently, there was a work that was released (literally as we were 95% done with the blog) we didn’t see coming called Digimon Adventure 13+, basically a novel by Hiroyuki Kakudō (the original director of Adventure and 02) that’s supposed to explain backstory elements of Digimon Beyond. However, it is NOT an official release and despite being finished at the same time as Beyond’s release, Toei rejected publishing it. Kakudo also left work on Kizuna midway because his vision was not compatible with it, so taking his word as an authority for modern Digimon works is questionable (all due respect to him of course). With that information, we felt taking it at face value would be too disingenuous as it is ultimately an unofficial release that Toei rejected (least of all for powerscaling purposes). We’ve decided to not include its contents for this blog (though we did check it out for any relevant information) and to stick with the official Toei timeline.

This blog will be using Japanese original terms for names like Taichi, so for the dub viewers here’s a list of notable terms changed (DigiDestined = Chosen Children, Tai = Taichi, Matt = Yamato, Kari = Hikari, Machinedramon = Mugendramon, Rookie = Child, Champion = Adult, Ultimate = Perfect, Mega = Ultimate).

One more thing is that we’re aware both Red, Pokémon, Taichi and Digimon are both beloved amongst their fanbases, and we tried our best to represent them as loving but still honest as possible. If you’re going into this blog expecting us to shit on Red/Pokémon or do some epic fraud check of Tai, it’s important to know that’s not the case. We all went into this as a ground up research for both the Pokémongames and Digimon Adventures continuity and this took months for us to get it all done amongst our blog members. It’s okay to constructively criticize if you want, but all we ask is to do so respectively and not hurl insults towards anyone here. We made this with zero stakes in mind and as passionate fans of both series. We’re only human at the end of the day!

Furthermore, we’re giving a big thanks to these fan-run reference sites that were fantastic sources of information for both Pokémon and Digimon, so special credits go to:

Without further ado, please enjoy this blog made by passionate Pokémon and Digimon fans!

Background

Red

  • Age: Late 20s - early 30s (as of Sun/Moon)
  • Occupation: Battle Tree runner, Champion, standing on top off very cold mountains without freezing somehow
  • Likes: Pokémon (especially Charizard and Pikachu), Blue, battling, cycling
  • Dislikes: Team Rocket, Zubats in caves, Twitch Plays Pokémon
  • Friends with Lucas from Mother 3 and chill with Ash Ketchum
  • Isn't actually mute, just a really quiet guy (mood)

Before we did the trials of Alola, battle through the ZA Royale in Lumiose or explored the huge world of Paldea, it all began all the way back in Pallet Town with a young boy named Red. All young kids around his age would get their first Pokémon to start on their journey and he was no exception as Professor Oak saw promise in him and entrusted him to complete his lifetime goal of finishing the Pokedex. Whether he picked the flaming lizard Charmander, the water blasting Squirtle, the grass powered Bulbasaur or perhaps in another timeline he chose the electrifying Pikachu, his life would change forever as he explored the world of Pokémon.

Red’s journey wasn’t easy as the Kanto region had all sorts of powerful Pokémon and trainers, least of all his eternal rival from Pallet Town, Blue, who always seemed like he was one step ahead of him. However, his bravery, determination and trust and kindness towards his Pokémon proved strong as he overcame all sorts of obstacles. The burning fire in Red only grew as he defeated all the gym leaders in the region, caught all sorts of Pokémon no matter how tough and large they were (including the large but reliable friend, Snorlax sleeping in Route 12 or 16) and even stopped Team Rocket’s evil ambitions. Perhaps this kindness and inner strength is why he was gifted with an Eevee and a Lapras by a Silph Co. employee, becoming friends with them as well, the former becoming an Espeon who needed a strong bond with their trainer.

His Kanto journey would climax at the Indigo Plateau, where he would challenge the Elite 4. Despite having to face all of them in a row with minimal rest, Red overcame them all though he still had one final challenge left: Blue. This time though, even though his rival seemed to always be ahead of him, Red would defeat Blue in one climatic battle, becoming the Kanto Pokémon champion. All of his hard work, love and passion finally paid off as he was inducted into the hall of fame, along with his Pokémon team.

Red’s journey didn’t quite stop there as he still caught every Pokémon that was known at the time, exploring other places like the Sevii islands, trading with others and even managing to catch the legendary birds. Even the extremely dangerous and powerful Mewtwo met his match when Red defeated and caught them as well in one blazing battle in Cerulean Cave. He eventually caught all 151 Pokémon at the time, perhaps even more, fulfilling Professor Oak’s lifetime goal of doing so. Red kept catching and training, always trying to one up himself, becoming one of the strongest trainers ever…until one day he isolated himself from the world.

No one knew what happened to Red years later after he became champion. Not even his mom could keep in touch with him. Red had proven himself to be the strongest, but what was there after? He trained on top of Mt. Silver, away from the world, until one day, another trainer known as Gold arrived at the peak of the mountain too to challenge him. It was a thrilling battle, one could say was one of the best in history, but whether Red won or lost didn’t matter. There were other trainers like him, both being able to give him a challenge and love Pokémon as much as he did.

Perhaps this was what caused him to finally reconnect and return to society, even joining the Pokémon World Tournament with his other fellow champions. There were others to give him a challenge now that loved Pokémon as much as he did. He even reunited with his long time friend Blue several years later and arrived in Alola to help run the Battle Tree, inspiring other younger trainers like Elio and Selene to become stronger and give them a worthy challenge.

Red never stopped loving Pokémon and battling and despite never really saying much, he was happy to see others like him. He had become the Champion, a living legend but also inspired many generations of future Pokémon trainers to chase after their dreams. With his trusted Pokémon and partners by his side, he was never really alone too, all of them becoming powerful fighters, from the fearsome Charizard, sturdy Blastoise, versatile Venusaur and Pikachu that never needed to evolve to prove himself. He really was the very best like no one ever was, not just as a trainer, but with a heart brighter than gold and a soul shining like silver too.

Taichi & Agumon

  • Full Name: Taichi Yagami (Tai Kamiya for the dub kids)
  • Age: 22 (Taichi in Kizuna) 40 (Taichi in 02’s Epilogue)
  • Older brother to Hikari Yagami
  • Occupation: United Nations Diplomat
  • Likes: each other, food and singing (Agumon), Yamato & Playboy magazines (Taichi)
  • Dislikes: Evil Digimon, Angela Anaconda
  • Has pretty cool goggles

Summer vacation. A time for leisure, recreation, and taking it easy… Unless you happened to be on a certain fateful camping trip in 1999 as Taichi Yagami (Tai Kamiya for the dub kids) was along with six other peculiar kids. After a freak snowstorm hit the campsite and a bizarre aurora borealis arose over the area, Taichi and co. were met with several bizarre devices that rained down on them and were then suddenly whisked away to another world. And once Taichi woke up, he would be met with an odd pink blob monster, Koromon, with the others meeting their own little creatures too. Creatures known as Digimon, AKA Digital Monsters. But when the cast was attacked by a hostile Kuwagamon, Koromon along with the other Digimon who the kids had met would charge out to protect their humans, and it was Taichi and the children's calls to them that caused the Digimon to Digivolve, with Koromon in particular Digivolving to Agumon. And it was from here that a tale that would encompass both the Digital World and the real world would unfold, with Taichi and Agumon as one of the centerpieces of it along with the rest of the group who would be known as the Chosen Children.

But what were Chosen Children? Just a group of paired humans and Digimon who were, as the name suggests, chosen to protect the Digital and real worlds from whatever threats may harm it with Digivices in tow, and coincidentally, this group of Chosen Children were selected because years ago they were witness to a battle between a Parrotmon and Greymon, the latter of which Tai helped raise as a toddler before the dinosaur mysteriously vanished. And in the present, Taichi and Agumon would have to fight a lot of threats during this quest. But throughout it all, Taichi would develop further and further along with the rest of the Chosen Children, with these developments being integral to Tai helping Agumon Digivolve to new heights. Growing into becoming a true leader for his friends, accepting help from others, overcoming fears of danger to manifest the power of the Crest of Courage to defeat the Elvis Presley-impersonating Etemon, and protecting his little sister Hikari who turned out to also be a Chosen Child and also responsible for raising the newly-born Digimon who would become that Greymon in the battle years ago.

But it was during the battle with the Dark Masters that the duo of Courage were pushed to their limits, even with the highest level of Digivolution attained. From having to constantly retreat from forces far stronger, witnessing allies sacrifice themselves to keep the Chosen Children alive, having fellow Chosen Children Yamato and Gabumon turned against them which split the party up, and Taichi even being forced to relive the time he accidentally put his ill little sister's life at risk as he struggled to help her through another bout of sickness in the present under the threat of a bombardment-happy Mugendramon. It was an incredibly harsh uphill series of battles, but eventually, the Chosen Children would prevail. As with brave hearts blazing, Tai and Agumon would lead the final battle against the last Dark Master Piedmon, paving the way for the other Chosen Children to reunite and return with far more allies for the chance to take down the enemy-turned-figurine-collecting clown. And ultimately, they would take on the creator of the Dark Masters Apocalymon, with Tai, Agumon, and the Chosen Children proving victorious against the being that threatened to annihilate both worlds. And following that, with the gate between the Digital and real worlds closing, Taichi and Agumon would part ways at the end of their journey as he and the rest of the Chosen Children would say their farewells to their Digimon and return to the real world… For at least a year or less, as this was far from the end of this story.

After a series of events involving another Chosen Child Ryo Akiyama (VERY long story) followed by an encounter that involved the birth of the legendary fusion Omegamon to stop Diablomon from nuking Japan, 2002 would arrive, and with a new threat emerging and early high school on its way, Taichi passed off his goggles to the new resident gogglehead Daisuke, as he, Agumon, and their friends would help the next generation of Chosen Children in their endeavors with Daisuke spearheading the newcomers, a tale that would quite literally span worldwide across both dimensions.

Following that, three years would pass to 2005 and Taichi would be in his final years of high school, when once again a new threat to the Digital and real worlds would strike, leaving our heroes to fight once again. However, things were… different this time. The new Chosen Children suddenly went missing, the original Chosen Children had to juggle the oncoming threats while dealing with real life issues piling up, no one wore silly gloves anymore, and Taichi in particular was far less courageous than usual and reluctant to fight, worried about the harm these battles could bring to the real world. Though through an encounter with a peculiar girl Meiko and her even more odd Digimon Meicoomon, as well as Agumon and the other Chosen Children pulling him out of his slump, Taichi would manage to muster up his courage once again. And with that, Taichi would lead the Chosen Children once again, this time through realistic high school struggles, battles against some of the Royal Knights, a conspiracy involving the very first Chosen Children, and a plot involving a corruption-spreading Meicoomon that required an entire reset to the Digital World and the Digimon as well as the involvement of the mad Digital World god Yggdrasil, which also involved a very mysterious mastermind in black whose plans will definitely be addressed again. And ultimately, Taichi, Agumon, and the Chosen Children would prove successful yet again in protecting the two worlds.

Five years later in 2010, and with the Chosen Children in their college years and beyond, Taichi and Agumon were still hard at work in protecting the real world. Dealing with rogue Digimon, handling college, night shift jobs, and… figuring out the future. Adulthood was upon them, less of the team were showing up to missions, and Taichi was stuck figuring out just what the hell he was going to do with his life while almost everyone else (Yamato aside) had careers and such sorted out. And if that weren't bad enough, on top of Chosen Children falling into comas with their partner Digimon vanishing in regards to the mysterious Eosmon, the Digimon researcher Menoa Bellucci would reveal a tragic truth: Being a Chosen Child had a time limit as the human side of the duo reached the limit of their potential. And with a mysterious timer having appeared on his Digivice, Tai and Agumon's time together was about to conclude.

However, they weren't going to let things end sitting down, as the courageous duo were determined to always be together until the very end. Even if they weren't able to find a way to stop their impending separation, Taichi and Agumon, along with Yamato and Gabumon who were also under the same affliction, would put everything on the line once Menoa revealed her grand scheme to use Eosmon to abduct every single Chosen Children and their Digimon and trap them within their childhoods, aiming to prevent them from suffering the same adulthood-induced separation she had to endure since her younger years. And when even Omegamon failed to put a stop to Eosmon, it all came down to the bonds between Taichi and Agumon as well as Yamato and Gabumon. With the final Digivolutions lighting the way to everyone's futures, they would defeat Eosmon, liberate Menoa from her own imprisonment, and liberate all the Chosen Children as well, setting everyone free to grow up to what lies ahead. But with the timer on his Digivice hitting zero, it was then that Taichi and Agumon had to finally separate, seemingly for good…

But this was still not the end of our gogglehead's tale, nor was it a moment forcing him to give up his involvement with Digimon entirely. Rather, it was this series of events that finally inspired Taichi on what his future would be: Pursuing a world where humans and Digimon can co-exist. And from there on out, Taichi’s path would be set to become a diplomat for the Digital World. But he wouldn't be facing this path alone, as he would ultimately reunite with Agumon once more. And together, Taichi, Agumon, and the Chosen Children would continue to fight for both worlds, with so many more adventures to follow as their story continues beyond.

Experience & Skill

Red

Naturally, as the very first Pokémon protagonist that started it all, Red set the standard for all future heroes in the franchise. The Kanto starters needed to be gifted away only to good Trainers, and Red fit the bill perfectly. Not only did he collect all 8 gym badges around Kanto throughout the first games, thus solidifying his skill and mastery as a Pokémon Trainer, but this feat impressed the gym leaders as well. For example, beating Lt. Surge means fighting Pokémon that saved him during “the war”, Erika considered Red an especially strong Trainer, Red’s love towards his Pokémon couldn’t be bested by best girl Sabrina’s psychic power, and Giovanni’s own secret Grunts thought that Red could have become a top leader on Team Rocket before he singlehandedly dismantled it (even Giovanni is mocked for losing to a “mere child”). That very love and bond with his Pokémon, which Professor Oak himself complimented, was brought about by Red raising his Pokémon with utmost care, thus motivating his own team to work and compete for the Trainer that puts complete trust in them. This is tangibly important because it’s established that trained Pokémon are stronger than those caught in the wild, something Red builds upon by mixing brain and brawn for his battle strategies. These approaches to battles allowed him to take down Elite Four members like Lance, who hails from a clan of dragon masters. Doubly impressive since “virtually indestructible" Dragon-type Pokémon are especially tough to catch and raise.

After finally defeating the newly crowned Champion, his rival Blue, Red gained a mythical reputation and was considered a “Living Legend”. Fitting, given that it takes a legendary Trainer to be recognized by Legendary Birds like Articuno. However, Red was never satisfied with a simple title like “Champion”, which made him always look for new ways to grow and bring out the potential in his Pokémon. Fixating, almost obsessively, on battling, Red holed himself up on Mt. Silver to continue training. He’s almost always doing intense training with his team, and he still looks for ways to improve even after a victory. He battles nonstop, even sometimes losing sleep over it. On top of Red’s bizarre, yet clever tactics, such as Gigantamaxing his Snorlax inside of a room to distract Team Rocket during a hostage situation, his reputation spread to other regions around the world. Even the notoriously tough Sinnoh Champion, Cynthia, thought that beating Red under normal circumstances would be incredibly difficult. And she’s not wrong, his strength had ballooned to such heights that he was able to battle with his Charizard in a 1-on-3 fight against protagonists Ethan, Elio, and Rosa simultaneously… and win. Red’s even able to contend with all the other Champions from different regions in the brackets of the Pokémon World Tournament, a challenge intended to raise everyone’s level of skill. Even the Galar champion Leon, a trainer that has gone completely undefeated in Galar’s extremely competitive league, is able to be matched by Red and his skills, a testament to his incredible ability.

As a Pokémon Trainer of this caliber, our Kantonian Champion should know all of the basic and advanced information regarding how Pokémon battling and physiologies work. There’s the basics, like how Same-Type Attack Bonus has Pokémon using moves that are the same Typing as it boost that move’s power by 50% and that Pokémon can Auto-Battle on their own without receiving a Trainer’s instructions. Naturally, he should be aware that beating stronger Pokémon makes your Pokémon stronger in turn and that Pokémon can avoid moves with a shout from their Trainer too. In more modern games, Pokémon can also relearn moves that they've forgotten at will. Good Trainers, in general, should all know not to only rely on brute force and to think about different strategies to optimize move usage or the best time to use an item. Some Pokémon, depending on their personalities, can even come out of their Poké Ball or return to them of their own volition. Basic Pokémon facts for different kinds of species Red should know are that Psychic Pokémon can generally all use telekinesis or psychically track down a Trainer they’ve bonded with. Flying-types have acutely developed eyesight, and all Pokémon should be capable of fighting non-physical species like Gastly, which are composed of diffuse, gaseous matter. Some Ghost-types, like Alolan Marowak, can even manipulate the spirits of Pokémon and weaponize them into flames. Considering that Red should have completed the Pokédex of three regions at least, all of this information should be familiar to him. Red’s considered one of the strongest Pokémon Trainers of all time and for dang good reason.

Taichi & Agumon

Tai may seem like a brash person that springs into action, but he’s more adept than you’d think he is. Even when he does rush into things, he would usually consider his surroundings and Tai himself is aware of his strengths and weaknesses. Yamato has commented on Tai’s quick reaction before and Koushiro thinks they only got this far near the end of Adventure because of Tai’s strategies (though admittedly Tai says it’s more so stuff he made up.) One example is when he got Agumon to aim at the ceiling to burn cables holding steel beams together, so they can fall on Andromon. Even when there was a time he seemed angry at a friend, it’s actually him just faking it so it could lure out someone following him.

Agumon himself is no slouch either. As a Koromon, he’s able to keep up and hop on decent distances to keep up with Ogremon. Even when he’s Greymon, a giant dinosaur, he’s surprisingly acrobatic, being able to leap several stories to chase down a flying Digimon and skilled enough to aim his fireball high into the sky to accurately strike them.

As MetalGreymon, he’s used his SkullMeramon’s chains against him and WarGreymon is about Digivolving from veteran warriors that rise up as a hero. Tai and Agumon have trained with Piccolomon, have been able to do three battles in a row without rest (though they did have help) and helped keep the peace between the human and digital world for years up until Tai is an adult in Kizuna and even more when he turns 40 in 02’s epilogue as a United Nations Diplomat.

Perhaps the most important thing about Tai and Agumon though is their courage. While sometimes reckless, Tai has shown no fear towards even the most dangerous and evil Digimon. He confronts Shellmon while Agumon is trapped, which lets the latter Digivolve. He never gives up until the very end, which lets Greymon digivolve into MetalGreymon even as Etemon was threatening to destroy the Digital World. Tai knows he can’t win every battle, at least not without the other Chosen Children, but Tai is considered the leader of the Chosen Children. Afterall, the group fell apart before but Taichi brought them all together. Tai and Agumon are certainly one fierce and courageous duo that are smarter than you’d think and should never be counted out.

Equipment

Red

Pokédex

The proof of being the main character in a Pokémon series (mostly), the Pokédex allows for quick information documentation of Pokémon. Pokémon can be scanned for information, and once caught, have said information expanded on further with details like height and typing. This information is then permanently catalogued within the Pokédex for later reference. Red originally could catalog the main 151 Kanto Pokémon, but later on upgraded to the National Dex to include 386 total Pokemon from Johto and Hoenn. It is unclear if he updated his Pokédex again in Sun & Moon to include Generation 7 Pokémon.

Poké Balls

The iconic signature devices of the franchise, Poké Balls work to catch Pokémon and keep the Monsters in your Pockets thanks to their simple small size. There’s a lot of variations with different bonuses and catch rates, but they all typically accomplish the same purpose of catching them all. And, despite the PC system existing, you can carry around more than six occupied Poké Balls on your person, as shown through Alder since he doesn't know how to operate a PC. The Pokémon inside aren’t isolated from the outside either. They can sense and understand the situation immediately nearby, even shaking them if they’re especially emotional. They, however, cannot catch Pokémon already owned by another trainer; no stealing allowed!

Recovery Items

(“You don’t get to be champion of the Pokémon League without knowing how to spam full restores!” - Lance)

Red carries several items to heal his team if things ever get dicey. He can carry up to 999 of each item, with him having a variety of items for different helpful effects. For reference, we’ll be using the Fire Red and Leaf Green iterations of the items since that was the last game where Red used anything but Full Restores, so keep that in mind if you think there’s any inaccurate numbers.

  • Potions: Red has multiple spray potions he can apply to directly restore a Pokémon’s lost hit points. Potions restore 10, Super Potions restore 60, Hyper Potions restore 200, Max Potions restore all hitpoints, and Full Restores do the same while also curing Status Effects.
  • Heals: Red has access to multiple different items that can undo harmful Status Effects. In big versatile battles, you better bring Burn Heals to heal burns which inflict passively cover the victim in flames, Ice Heals to undo being frozen solid, Paralyze Heals to undo electrical paralysis that limits movement, Antidotes to undo poisoning, and Awakenings to undo undesired sleep. Red can also use Full Heals, which can cure all of the previous Status Effects without requiring a variety of choices.
  • Revives: If one of his Pokémon were to faint in battle, Red can pick them back up immediately with his Revives. They’ll restore a fainted ally to 50% HP when used, and Red can double the restoration to a full 100% if he uses a Max Revive instead.
  • Elixirs: If a Pokémon ever gets tired and loses too much PP to use moves, Red can recover that lost PP with Elixirs. There’s the singular versions in Ethers, with normal variants restoring 10PP to a single move while Max Ethers restore all of a single move’s PP. Elixirs are strictly better though, with normal and max Elixirs respectively doing the same as Ethers except for all of a Pokémon’s moves instead of just single moves.
  • Drinks: Simpler healing items. Fresh Water and Soda Pops restore 50 hitpoints, and Lemonade restores 80. Heals less than the best potions sure, but are said potions as refreshing? I think not.

Held Items

In order to boost his Pokémon during battle, Red can give them a large variety of items to hold. They all have distinct perks, opening a lot of options for strategy. We will mainly list the items in Fire Red/Leaf Green as that was the last time Red was a playable character, though he does have other items seen in the Battle Tree in Alola which we’ll list to the individual corresponding Pokémon later.

  • Amulet Coin: Increases money earned from winning battles if held by a Pokémon that participated in said battle (does Taichi carry pocket change?).
  • Berries: A variety of quick bites to eat Red can give his team. Most of them work for curing previously mentioned status conditions, however there are some unique ones. Oran berries heal a flat 10 HP, Sitrus berries a sizable 33%, and Persim berries remove Confusion. There’s also Leppa berries to restore 10 PP to a select move like elixirs do. There’s also a variety of berries that can amplify stats, be it speed, either attacking stat, either defensive stat, critical hit rate, or even raise a random stat twice as much as normal. The signature bonus of berries is that they can be held by Pokémon naturally rather than needing Red to administer them himself, saving time by making recovery automatic.
  • Black Glasses: Boosts Dark type move attacking power.
  • Bright Powder: If held, it’ll create a “tricky glare” that lowers the opponent’s accuracy.
  • Charcoal: Boosts Fire type move attacking power.
  • Choice Band: Raises a Pokémon’s attack stat by 50% in exchange for locking them into their first selected move until they switch out of battle.
  • Cleanse Tag: If held by Red’s leading Pokémon, it’ll prevent interactions with wild Pokémon.
  • Deep Sea Scale: An item that slightly increases special defense.
  • Deep Sea Tooth: An item that slightly increases special attack.
  • Dragon Fang: Boosts Dragon type move attacking power.
  • Exp. Share: The wielder of this will receive any XP the winner of a battle receives without having to participate in said battle. Would a wild Greymon give more XP than a Chansey?
  • Everstone: Prevents a Pokémon from evolving (kind of useless here but hey he has some).
  • Focus Band: Grants the wielder a chance to survive a move that’d normally be a KO at 1HP.
  • Hard Stone: Boosts Rock type move attacking power.
  • King’s Rock: Grants a 10% chance to flinch on every attack a Pokémon lands on the enemy.
  • Lax Incense: If held, it’ll create a “tricky aroma” that lowers the opponent’s accuracy.
  • Leftovers: Grants 6.25% HP recovery per turn for the held Pokémon.
  • Light Ball: Doubles both physical and special attacking stats if held by Pikachu.
  • Lucky Egg: Boosts XP earned from battles by the held Pokémon.
  • Lucky Punch: Increases Critical Hit Ratio if held by Chansey
  • Macho Brace: When held, it’ll improve strength training at the cost of speed.
  • Magnet: Boosts Electric type move attacking power.
  • Mental Herb: A special herb that can be consumed to undo status effects like confusion, attraction, and rage bait / being taunted.
  • Metal Coat: Boosts Steel type move attacking power.
  • Metal Powder: Increases the defense stat if held by Ditto.
  • Miracle Seed: Boosts Grass type move attacking power.
  • Mystic Water: Boosts Water type move attacking power.
  • Never-Melt Ice: Boosts Ice type move attacking power.
  • Poison Barb: Boosts Poison type move attacking power.
  • Quick Claw: When held, gives a small chance to the wielder to have their next attack have priority speed.
  • Scope Lens: When held, boosts the Pokémon’s critical hit ratio by one stage.
  • Sea Incense: Boosts Water type move attacking power.
  • Sharp Beak: Boosts Flying type move attacking power.
  • Shell Bell: When held, recovers part of the Pokémon’s health relative to how much damage they did.
  • Silk Scarf: Boosts Normal type move attacking power.
  • Silver Powder: Boosts Bug type move attacking power.
  • Smoke Ball: If held by a Pokémon, allows it to leave
  • Soft Sand: Boosts Ground type move attacking power.
  • Soothe Bell: Increases friendship gained through battle for Pokémon
  • Soul Dew: Boosts special attack and defense when held by Latios or Latias (AKA Pokémon Red doesn’t have).
  • Spell Tag: Boosts Ghost type move attacking power.
  • Stick: Doubles attack if held by Farfetchs.
  • Thick Club: Doubles attack if held by Marowaks.
  • Twisted Spoon: Boosts Psychic type move attacking power.
  • White Herb: An herb that can be consumed to undo stat debuffs.

X Boosts

If Red needs his team to be even stronger during battle, Red can use X Boost items to raise a specific stat until they switch out. He can boost Accuracy, Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Speed, and Critical Hit ratio. Red can also use a Guard Spec., which is special in that it prevents stat reduction amongst all party Pokémon for a while after usage.

Poké Flute

A special flute used to wake sleeping Pokémon, usually Snorlaxes specifically.

Fishing Rods

While Ganondorf is a mighty Great King of- oh, wrong blog. Just a standard Fishing Rod to catch water-bound Pokémon.

Silph Scope

A special device Red acquired in Lavender Town, it allows him to see ghosts normally invisible to the human eye.

Itemfinder

A dowsing machine that can be used to find items buried in the ground, hidden from sight.

Badges

Red got all 8 Kanto badges and certain ones can give Red certain benefits. For example, the Boulder Badge gives his Pokémon a 12.5% boost to attack, the Thunder (in RBY)/Soul (FRLG) Badge boosts his Pokémon’s defense, the Volcano Badge boosts both Special stats and the Soul (RBY)/Thunder (FRLG) increases his Pokémon’s speed. They also allowed him to control traded Pokémon without issue regardless of level once he has all 8, and allow him to use moves like Surf and Strength outside of battle.

Bicycle

Received in Cerulean City after exchanging a bike voucher from the Poke Fan Club President, Red would get a bicycle for his mobility needs (and a new song that plays whenever he rides it). It goes much faster than Red running…and that’s about all it does, but hey being able to get from place to place faster is nice. Just don't use it indoors; there’s a time and place for everything but not now!

Key Stone

To push a Pokémon beyond the limits of evolution, a Key Stone is used to enable Mega Evolution (alongside the other needed components like a Pokémon’s respective Mega Stone and an accessory like a Mega Ring). By tapping the stone, Red can enable a capable enough Pokémon to Mega Evolve by aiming the expended, directed energy at his team member to infuse them with Mega Power via a wavelength converted from the feelings he has for them.

The origin of the Mega Stones began millennia ago when they were formed after the Ultimate Weapon was fired, irradiating everything nearby with its manipulated life energy, though Mega Evolution first technically naturally happened in Hoenn. This new form of energy, dubbed Mega Power, crystallized as or mutated nearby evolutionary stones into Mega Stones that cause, when activated or overflowing, an energy surge Pokémon can naturally detect and are drawn to. Although, too much Mega Power can induce Rogue Mega Evolution, a painful state that requires other Pokemon to literally beat the excess energy out of them, a process easier to accomplish when interacting with other Mega Power from Mega Evolved Pokémon. Other forms of life energy, such as Gaia Energy, can facilitate Mega Evolution through the use of an accessory as well, but not as efficiently as Mega Power.

The actual process and state of Mega Evolution transcends normal evolution, awakening and bringing out a Pokémon’s latent strength, unleashing all of their hidden energy at once to attain a new level of power beyond what’s capable through evolution. Though, Mega Evolution can only occur in Pokémon that are unable to evolve further. The most important component necessary to activate Mega Evolution, on top of having a Mega Ring and Mega Stone, is a strong bond with your Pokémon to direct the Mega Power. This process will not only amplify the existing bonds between the trainer and their Pokémon, but it’ll grant a Pokémon a brand new form with potentially new abilities or typings.

Yet, Mega Evolution is only a temporary state sustained by the amount of Mega Power in the Mega Ring. Through that Mega Power stored in the Mega Rings or related accessories, a Mega Evolved Pokémon’s moves can be amplified by draining some of that energy, although this will shorten the duration a Pokémon can remain in this form. When the Mega Ring isn’t charged, it’s possible to build up Mega Power over time by dealing damage, taking damage, or ordering your Pokémon to use a move, and the closer in proximity you are to your Pokémon, the more Mega Power you’ll gain. While in mainline games, such as Pokémon X & Y, Mega Evolution lasts for however long the rest of the battle goes on for, real-time battles in Pokémon Legends: Z-A have it last for around a minute. Other energy sources like Synergy Power facilitated by Gaia Energy in Pokkén Tournament last for only 10 seconds, but this is likely due to its inferiority to Mega Power. In the animated series, Pokémon Origins, Red himself is shown using Mega Charizard X against Mewtwo for upwards of two minutes without running it out given he’d won by that point.

Taichi & Agumon

Goggles

The proof of being the main character in a Digimon series (mostly). Aside from being the first animated character to wear them, it protects his eyes from getting dust in them. Koushiro would later upgrade Taichi’s goggles to let him see the distortions in space. It also lets him see the flow of data with them, able to differentiate them through data format and even strength. In Kizuna, he would get even more upgraded variants that let him see Digimon info like their route path…though it should be noted, these were prototypes he had a lot of trouble using.

Digivice

Upon entering the Digital World for the first time and meeting Koromon, Taichi would also get his own Digivice. Though ordinarily colored white, Taichi’s is specially colored orange and blue. The Digivice is Taichi’s main outlet that helps him support Agumon to Digivolve in combat, usually after a burst of motivation. Makes sense as Crests, Digivices, and their partner Digimon were all designed to fit the Digidestined and the Digivice matches Tai’s special qualities with Agumon, and enables him to evolve correctly. Heck, thanks to his bond with Agumon, he’ll get a warning on his Digivice should Agumon call out for him. Aside from that though, the Digivice is a surprisingly versatile device. It can tell time, track other Digivices (sorta acting like a radar) and even react to nearby enemy Digimon as a warning.

Digivices are actually legendary holy devices, guiding the Digital World towards light while driving away the darkness. This makes sense as it counters and even free Digimon from mind control from evil entities like Devimon, being able to drive them away at least and even purge evil artifacts such as the Black Gears. They are the perfect counter to evil, being able to eliminate darkness. They can even emit an energy pulse that can harm others that stole them from their user but sometimes can make other Digimon feel weirdly refreshed and energized just by touching them. They’ve been able to create a path of light from the Human World to the Digital World. Other Digivices like in the 02 cast have been able to go to the Digital World from a computer with a gate (but it should be noted Taichi’s specifically can’t). Perhaps the strongest showing of the Digivice is when Taichi and the other Chosen Children used them to form a barrier to stop Apocalymon’s self-destruct explosion that was going to destroy the digital and human worlds, showing just how strong the holiness of the Digivices really are.

It should be noted they are not perfect devices. In Kizuna, Taichi’s Digivice began to crack, forcing Omegamon to defuse and Agumon revert back to Koromon, implying substantial damage could be troublesome for them. There’s also some areas like Jureimon’s forest where the Digivice does not work for whatever reason (though the Human World is obviously still fine). Taichi usually leaves his Digivice at home in Kizuna, but it is still connected to his phone, so he can use it wherever.

In the 2020 continuity, the Digivices are also capable of being used as a communication device, can scan and identify other Digimon, form forcefields, empower the user’s Digimon partner, and even protect against existence erasure from Negamon. In fact, Algomon states that the Digivices are the manifestation of the Digital World’s desire to survive and live.

Crest of Courage

Later on in the story, Taichi would gain the Crest of Courage, which he conveniently holds in the tag provided for him. Just like his Digivice, his Crest was designed specifically to fit Taichi and Courage was the strongest quality shown by him four years prior to Adventure’s start. The Crests main quality is the ability to make Agumon evolve even further, from Greymon to MetalGreymon and later on to WarGreymon. What specifically happens is Greymon feels Taichi’s courage from him and his Crest and feels the power surging inside him.

Aside from helping Agumon digivolve even further, the crests have other useful powers. They can awaken Chosen Children while they’re asleep. It can also restrain large Digimon like VenomVamdemon should they prove difficult to slow down. It should be noted that while the Crests and their tags can technically be destroyed, the power of the Crests are still within Taichi and the other Chosen Children as they’re actually the symbol of their hearts (metaphorically!), so should the worst happen, Taichi can still help Agumon evolve through his crest within his heart. The Crests would even help the Chosen Children reform from being transmuted into data…which we’ll explain later.

Telescope

Taichi carried around a telescope when he went camping to check his surroundings and see faraway places. Nothing too useful in combat, but hey, always come prepared!

Bike

Oh hey, Taichi has a bike too that lets him go to places faster than just walking. He doesn’t really use it in combat, but don’t knock for easier transportation! He’s had a bike since he was a kid too, so some things never change we suppose.

D-Terminal

Tai has a device called a D-Terminal to send emails from Digital World to Human World and how he keeps in touch with his fellow Chosen Children while he’s there. Pretty handy to have for communication purposes.

PSP Items

In the Digimon Adventure PSP game, Tai can use items to help support Agumon in battle and we’ll list them here to be comprehensive (and will talk more in the verdict if it would change anything considering their non-existent in the canon anime). He has normal usable items (and carries up to 99 of them) and Digi Pieces Tai can equip to give Agumon all sorts of benefits. There’s a lot, so we’ll mainly just list the notables, which include:

  • Heal Capsule LL: Will heal the selected Digimon to full health.
  • SP Capsule Ω: Will replenish SP by 100.
  • Meat: Will fully restore HP and SP and remove all bad status ailments (poison, skill seal, slow) for one member.
  • ATK ↑ Chip Ω: Raise the selected Digimon’s attack by two levels
  • DEF ↑ Chip Ω: Raise the selected Digimon’s defense by two levels
  • ATK↓↓Chip: Lowers the foe’s attack by two levels
  • DEF↓↓Chip: Lowers the foe’s defense by two levels
  • Life Saver Kit: Will revive a team member to full HP (Note: Due to the nature of PSP game being a team game, it’s unclear if Tai could do this should Agumon be killed)
  • Remedy: Cures all bad status ailments (poison, skill seal and slow)

Digi Pieces (Equipment):

  • Drain Attack: Gives Agumon an extra attack command to drain an opponent’s HP and heal his own.
  • Poison Attack Ω: Gives Agumon an extra attack command to poison his foes.
  • Slow Attack Ω: Gives Agumon an extra attack command to inflict slow on his foes.
  • Status Reset: Gives Agumon an extra command to reset all beneficial stat buffs to his opponents.
  • Super Healthy Kid: Makes Agumon immune to the poison, slow and skill seal status.
  • Charm: Raises evasion.
  • Counter: Agumon will automatically counter attack should he get hit.
  • Life Up Ω: Will allow Agumon to revive with full HP, but only once. Better make it count.

Abilities

Red

Trainer Physiology

We know it sounds crazy to assume a trainer like Red is anything more than a normal human, but hear us out. It’s no secret that the ancient lore of the Pokémon universe reveals that humans and Pokémon were once the same kind of being, something Sinnoh especially expanded upon. This would then go on to serve as a likely basis for humans having innate psychic abilities, as shown with Caitlin, best girl Sabrina, Avery, and the entire Psychic subclass of Trainer NPCs, alongside characters like Rui having supernatural awareness. Team Plasma’s Shadow Triad have superhuman powers and can move faster than the eye can perceive, and N has an inherited ability to speak to Pokémon. Rosa and Nate, without special powers, managed to grow enough to emit strong aura that psychics and Ghost-type Pokémon can pick up on, and some people even end up becoming ghosts when they die. Even the mere act of cheering during Tera Raids gives boosts to Pokémon stats, which can even heal HP and remove status effects.

Aside from special powers and properties, it’s been repeatedly demonstrated that Trainers in the Pokémon world can take hits from even absurdly strong ones. Lumiose City Trainers need to know how to roll to avoid Pokémon attacks and can take hits from Legendary Pokémon. Shadow Pokémon from Orre were known for attacking people outright. Lance’s Dragonite once infamously blasted a Team Rocket Grunt with Hyper Beam, which is similarly repeated when Drayden’s Haxorus blasts a Team Plasma Grunt away. Speaking of Drayden, he’s actually been known to physically wrestle with his Pokémon to toughen them up, and other Gym Leaders like Marlon have been rumored to be able to stay in the ocean for seven days and nights straight. These kinds of absurd superhuman feats aren’t just exclusive to NPCs either, since protagonists are physically capable of reeling in Wailord while fishing, which weigh 877.4 pounds each. Needless to say, humans in Pokémon aren’t exactly one-to-one with humans in the real world.

Bonds Between Trainers and Pokémon

In the world of Pokémon, the strong sense of friendship between a Pokémon Trainer and their team is obviously going to be important with how battles require constant communication. However, not only is the “Power of Friendship” a tangible force in-lore, but Red’s bonds with his Pokémon are so unbreakable that they become cartoonishly in-sync. In order to pull this off, a Trainer has to trust their partner and earn their trust and love in return. Once their bond became true, Red was able to pull off perfect combinations with his synced Pokémon, and that friendship was so strong that he was able to give commands nonverbally. This is even something other characters have pulled off, such as Hilbert or Hilda being able to easily and wordlessly communicate with Virizion and Terrakion due to their initial close bond with Cobalion. This in-sync nature is also present within the game mechanics of later titles, as Affection or Friendship can manifest in battle through the Pokémon enduring hits that would normally KO them, avoiding moves more easily, landing more critical hits, or shaking offstatus conditions.

The bonds forged on Pokémon journeys through compassion and understanding are even able to explicitly fuel the power behind certain moves like Return or, conversely, Frustration if you wanna be mean. Sometimes, this friendship can facilitate some very minor Mind Manipulation resistances within both Trainers, like Emma, and Pokémon, like Shadow Mewtwo or Shadow Pokémon from Orre. However, this consistently isn’t enough to break free from manipulations outright. Emma couldn’t break from the mind control of the Expansion Suit, requiring Xerosic to shut it off. Shadow Mewtwo wasn’t fully purified of the Shadow Synergy Stone’s corruptions by the protagonist alone, necessitating Anne’s bond with it and the Synergy-charged broach to finalize its freedom. And, full purification of Shadow Pokémon from Orre needs Celebi’s mystical power within the Relic Stone or the use of the Purify Chamber to revert them back to normal.

But, the most important and significant aspect of this relationship between responsible Trainers and their team of Pokémon is its ability to draw out the full strength of previously wild or conventionally weak Pokémon. It is because of these bonds that trained Pokémon are stronger than wild Pokémon, and this allows them to continuously get stronger after every battle, their bonds deepening alongside their growth. While this can come across as flowery speculation by various NPCs to push a nice message, this is actually the subject of extensive scientific research by Colress, whose goal in Pokémon Black 2 & White 2 is to determine what the objective best method of drawing out a Pokémon’s strength is. And, by the end of the game, Colress’s conclusion confirms that Trainers bring out the power of their Pokémon by taking care of them and forming bonds, stating that Poké Balls act as a conduit to bind Trainers to their partners to facilitate this friendship, allowing them to overcome the impossible. This is explicitly shown through the inducement of Mega Evolution being reliant, in part, on the bonds forged between the Trainer activating the stones and the intended Pokémon in question, physically actualizing as a converted wavelength. This is consistent with Synergy Bursts in Pokkén Tournament, which facilitate Mega Evolutions and work off of Trainer-Pokémon bonds.

Pokémon Master Abilities

In the mobile game Pokemon Masters EX, Red gains abilities he normally couldn’t get in the main games giving him all sorts of various benefits (as well as a cool coat). To be clear, these abilities will not have a heavy influence on the verdict, but we figured it’s important to go through to be comprehensive. He has a LOT (most of them are just stat buffs), so we’ll mainly just list the notable ones. Go here for a comprehensive list.

  • Sync Move: Usually the strongest move his Pokémon has, while it does require charging the sync gauge, Red can unleash them for a very powerful attack and usually strong benefits including buffs and removing status effects.
  • Piercing Gaze: Red’s Pokémon will never miss their attacks with this ability.
  • A Journey in Red Awaits: Upon using a Sync Move, it’ll make the weather sunny or extend the duration. Also makes his next Sync Move and Special Attacks hit even harder the next time used.
  • Standfast: Reduces recoil damage from moves that deal them (examples like Charizard’s Flare Blitz and Pikachu’s Volt Tackle).
  • Sharp Entry: Raises his Pokémon’s critical rate upon entering battle.
  • MAX Regen: Gives his Pokémon the gradual healing effect after it’s using their max move.
  • Team Alert Mind: Raises the defense of his Pokémon when his Pokémon’s health drops below half.
  • Group Moral Support: Has a 50% chance to raise the special defense of his Pokémon when he uses a move.
  • Flute Awakening: Reduces the time it takes to use his next sync move upon using a max move, increases the next physical attack damage and reduces all physical damage taken.
  • Antitoxin: Prevents his Pokémon (mainly Snorlax) from being poisoned.
  • Quick Cure: Removes confusion, flinching and trapping effects the first time they’re inflicted.
  • Fire/Ice Guard: Reduces damage by those elements.
  • Safety Net: Applies the enduring effect (basically lets them survive a hit before death) when using a sync move for the first time in battle.
  • Status Immunity: Prevents his Snorlax from being inflicted any status effect.
  • Kanto Journey Legacy: Venusaur’s moves will never miss and all his attacks become critical.
  • Ferocious Entry: Raises Venusaur’s attack stats by 4 stages upon entering battle.
  • Move on Opp: Attack ↓ &/ Sp. Atk ↓: Lowers the target’s Attack or Special Attack on hit.
  • Lithe: Prevents Venusaur from being paralyzed.
  • Red’s Fighting Spirit: Extends the duration of Electric Terrain, making his moves charge faster and healing his Pokémon when they take an action.
  • Headstrong: Attack can’t be lowered.
  • Blizzard: Hostile Environment: Raises chances of Articuno landing a status effect.
  • Dauntless: Special attack can’t be lowered.
  • 1st S-Move: Hail: Causes a hailstorm the first time Red’s Articuno uses a sync move.
  • Boy From Pallet Town: Raises Pikachu’s special attack immediately by six ranks and all of his attacks become critical.
  • The Silent Trainer: Red’s Pokémon cannot be hit critically nor their stats lowered.

Taichi & Agumon

Digimon Physiology

Since Digimon are inherently so unique, we figure it’s best to go over them. To be clear, some of these are traits of Digimon that would apply regardless of continuity (but of course anything Agumon and his evolutions have never personally shown will not play a major factor in the verdict). Digimon are…well, digital monsters in the truest sense. They are life forms shaped together from data. This makes sense because in the Digital World, data is the equivalent of atoms and molecules in the real world (and of course Digimon have interacted in the real world without issue.)

Bond Between Tamer and Digimon

If there’s anything that Taichi and Agumon are known for, it’s their never give up attitude and unbreakable friendship. Even when they’re far away, if Agumon is in danger, he’ll know right away thanks to his Digivice. Taichi and Agumon have been best friends since the former was around 11 years old and have only grown since into adulthood. While Agumon is able to fight freely on his own without really being needed to give commands, his power directly comes from Tai. In fact, when Greymon digivolved, he was directly feeling Taichi’s courage that allowed him to do so (more on that later).

Aside from helping Agumon evolve further in combat, Taichi has done some weird yet great things with his bond. Perhaps the most important one is Taichi being able to give Agumon in his forms a second wind in combat even after taking heavy damage. Even after WarGreymon took heavy damage from his bout with Diaboromon, Taichi helped give him enough energy to evolve into Omegamon with MetalGarurumon, refusing to let him fight alone. Now obviously, that’s a fusion Digimon, but that’s actually not too far from other examples. Daisuke was able to revitalize Magnamon by calling out to him. Heck, in Kizuna, despite Omegamon getting destroyed to the point of losing limbs and being forcefully transformed back into Agumon, Taichi was still able to give just enough energy to give Agumon a new evolution in his Bond of Bravery form. It should be noted Taichi comments this was his last evolution, so it likely cannot be spammed, but the fact that his bond with Agumon is so strong to give such energy is a sight to behold.

Aside from that, Taichi has also entered the Digital World from his computer…somehow after seeing WarGreymon in pain. There would be a time where in the 02 The Beginning movie, Digivices from all over the world would start disappearing but other strong bonds like Daisuke and his V-Mon helped them stay together regardless. Finally, at the end of Kizuna, despite an emotional farewell to each other, they would eventually reunite years later. Should the worst happen and Agumon were to die, he can always come back as a Digiegg (though it should be noted this is obviously not combat applicable.)

Power of Evolution

Due to the power of his Digivice and Crest of Courage, Taichi can trigger the Power of Light and Evolution to allow Agumon to reach higher forms mid battle. This lets Agumon evolve into Greymon (his Adult form), Greymon into MetalGreymon (his Perfect form), warp evolve from Agumon into WarGreymon (his Ultimate form) and later on in the story, warp evolve into his Bond of Bravery form (Ultimate+ form). Previously, Taichi had to endanger himself to get Agumon to evolve, but later on, he’s able to just do it on command whenever he needs to. Agumon is directly feeling Taichi’s courage and energy, so the two are vital in order to achieve this. In exchange though, they’re able to match and defeat all sorts of foes they couldn’t previously.

Whenever a Digimon evolves, they seemingly are able to heal from wounds they’ve suffered from previous forms. In fact, any status effects like poisons or lowered stats will be removed upon evolving. Now it should be noted Agumon can’t evolve if he’s too tired and can run out of energy forcing him to transform back, meaning a long term fight could be detrimental to the duo. Taking too much damage was how Omegamon was forcefully transformed back afterall. However, it has been shown Greymon can fight for hours against a tough opponent (see the switch from day to night) and Agumon has transformed multiple times in rapid succession and got depowered, yet could still turn into WarGreymon (though his higher forms likely require more energy than his weaker ones).

Resistances

Red

Because Pokémon began as an RPG, it’s only natural that the game balance would revolve around strategies involving Type charts and ways around status effects. And, sometimes the lore will pack in some surprising or cartoonishly helpful resistances to certain techniques and abilities. The below list explains what would make the “It’s not very effective…” and “It doesn’t affect [X]…” boxes pop up:

  • Sleep: In the Orre games, verbally calling out to your Pokémon will wake them up from their Sleep status. Status cleansing items can also remove this effect.
  • Sealing: This resistance isn’t applicable to more mystical seals, which have been used to seal away powerful Pokémon like the Treasures of Ruin. However, Pokémon that are strong enough, agitated, or have a lot of their energy intact are especially difficult to capture in Poké Balls. They need to be made more susceptible to capture first by weakening them or afflicting them with status effects.

Taichi & Agumon

With Agumon and his forms being a Digimon, Tai and him had a lot of experience throughout the years dealing with all sorts of dangerous threats. From fire, evil, poison and even soul destruction, with Taichi and Agumon supporting each other, they’ve been able to resist a surprising number of threats, which include:

  • Fire: I mean all of Agumon’s forms literally breathe and/or shoot fire, of course he can take it.
  • Electricity: Scaling to other Digimon, who have survived high volts of electricity before
  • Transmutation: The DigiDestined and their partner Digimon had their bodies broken down into data, which is equivalent to data and molecules in the Digital World. However, through the power of Crests and Friendship™, they were able to reform their bodies (See Before The Verdict for more info).

Partners

Red

The Iconic Team

Red has caught plenty of Pokémon, but he certainly has his favorites. The following members are Pokémon we know Red has on him for sure as they are the same ones when you fight him on Mt. Silver, the Pokémon World Tournament and the Alola games. While he can only carry six Pokémon on him at a time and has only sent out one at a time (outside from double battles), these partners of his are some of the strongest of the strongest.

Pikachu

  • Type: Electric
  • STAB Targets: Flying, Water
  • Held Item: Light Ball (Doubles Pikachu’s Attack and Special Attack)
  • Ability: Static (May paralyze on contact)
  • Weaknesses: Ground
  • Resistance: Steel, Electric, Flying

Whether Red found this electric rat in Viridian Forest (with its 5% encounter rate…) or picked him as his starter in Pokémon Yellow, Pikachu is always a mainstay on his team and usually always leads with him. The most iconic Pokémon of all time needs no introduction and is usually always the highest leveled member of Red’s team. In Yellow, he really doesn’t like staying in his Poké Ball and follows Red wherever he goes (though he does eventually listen in later games) and refuses to evolve into the stronger Raichu. That’s okay though, since Red’s Pikachu is a cut above the rest.

While Pikachu is lacking in survivability, he more than makes up for it with lightning fast speed and shocking electricity, that he can build up and store in his cheeks. He also has a surprising amount of support moves and is more versatile than you might think. His unique held item, the Light Ball, doubles both his attack stats, letting him match even legendary Pokémon’s powers. He can also use his tail to check his surroundings, and even a wild group of Pikachu can cause lightning storms. Other Pikachus in Pokkén Tournament can jet through the air like a lightning bolt to alter their midair trajectory, electrify the environment, magnetize rocks, or have their called-down lightning track foes. As an electric type, he can also sometimes paralyze his foes with either his electric moves or his ability Static. Paralysis in Pokémon in this case greatly lowers your speed and sometimes prevents you from doing anything and seemingly lasts for the rest of the battle without an item/healing move of sorts. As an Electric-type though, Pikachu himself is immune to this status effect. Don’t underestimate this electric rat just because he looks small; he’s a strong and dependable friend for Red that he can always trust.

It should be noted Pikachu gains the ability to Gigantamax in Masters. While Red can’t rely on it to swing any verdicts today, we felt the need to include it for completionist sake, which doubles Pikachu’s health and gives him access to Max moves.

Also he’s just a big chonky fella.

Known Moves

  • Thunderbolt: The signature but powerful Electric-type move where Pikachu fires a strong bolt of lightning at his opponent. It’s highly accurate and has a 10% chance of inflicting paralysis on hit. A lot of Electric Pokémon’s go-tos.
  • Thunder: While less accurate, only hitting about 70% of the time, it’s even more powerful, summoning a huge bolt from above to strike his enemies (and his favorite down special to spam). It also has a 10% chance to paralyze and while it’s less accurate normally, its hit is guaranteed while it’s raining…though it drops to 50% if it’s really sunny.
  • Iron Tail: If Pikachu needs to get physical, his tail will glow and strike with a force of Steel, striking his enemies hard. It’s not the most accurate move at 75% chance of hitting, but it also has a 30% chance to lower an opponent’s defense too.
  • Quick Attack: While not very powerful, it lets Pikachu strike with a quick burst of speed, usually allowing him to strike first with a tackle of sorts.
  • Surf: Don’t worry, we didn’t forget! Learning this move from Pokémon Stadium in order to participate in the Pikachu’s Beach minigame exclusive to Yellow, Pikachu, somehow, summons a giant tidal wave out of nowhere to strike his opponents with this Water-type move, as he rides on it. It’s a huge AOE and it’s kinda crazy he can just do this. He can also use this move to help Red get across huge water areas, though he usually has better options.
  • Charm: Pikachu will gaze at his opponent in a charming fashion, heavily lowering their physical attack power, likely by making the opponent less wary.
  • Volt Tackle: The signature move of the Pikachu family, he’ll charge up with fierce electric power surrounding him, before striking his opponent with an incredibly powerful lightning coated tackle, which may paralyze if it doesn’t KO them. It does have its faults since Pikachu takes recoil damage, but it’s so powerful, it’s usually enough to finish the job.
  • Fake Out: Though Pikachu can only use this at the start of a battle, he can strike first and cause his opponents to flinch with this physical strike. Perfect for loosening his opponents up and potentially sniping out those troublesome Focus Sash users.
  • Brick Break: Red has taught his Pikachu this move where he’ll strike with a swift chop or his fists with this Fighting-type move. While it’s a powerful move indeed, perhaps the real strength to it is that it’ll break through barriers like Light Screen and Reflect, letting Pikachu and his teammates deal real damage again.
  • Light Screen: Speaking of barriers, Pikachu can conjure up these barriers that cut special attacks in half, greatly increasing his sustainability. While it only lasts for about 5 turns, it’ll persist if Pikachu is swapped out or KO’ed.
  • Reflect: This is basically the physical version of the above as Pikachu summons these barriers to cut those attacks in half as well. Again, only lasts for 5 turns, but it’ll persist if Pikachu is off the field and both this and Light Screen can coexist at the same time.
  • Double Team: Pikachu activates kage bunshin no jutsu to summon fake clones of himself, increasing his evasion, making him harder to hit than he was before (especially with his speed and small status).
  • Nuzzle: Pikachu will attack with its electrified cheeks, by…well nuzzling his foes. Though in power it’s incredibly weak, it’ll guarantee a paralysis on hit.
  • Thunder Wave: If Pikachu needs to strike from a distance, he’ll fire a jolt of lightning which while doesn’t do any damage, will guarantee a paralysis as well. It’s usually pretty accurate…though Gen 7 lowered it’s accuracy to 90%. Morally right, if you know you know.
  • Agility: Should Pikachu need even more speed, he can use a special technique to relax and focus his body to double it.
  • Tail Whip: Pikachu can wag around his tail and this lowers the foe’s defense.
  • (Masters only) Electric Terrain: Pikachu can turn the playing field electric, which gives him strong benefits like amping his electric moves even more and prevents him from falling asleep. Lasts for about 5 turns before going out.
  • (Masters only) Origin Volt Tackle: Though accessible only while Electric Terrain is active, this variant of Volt Tackle deals stronger damage than normal and doesn’t seem to have the recoil issue like before. It also can’t be weakened and lowers the target’s defensive stats if they’re paralyzed. What a shocking move.
  • (Masters only) Spark of Victory!: A rather simple move, but it raises Pikachu’s attack stat to the max while also applying a gradual healing effect to him and his allies. He’ll definitely be hitting hard after just one use of this move.
  • (Masters only) Lightning Fast Volt Tackle: His likely strongest move, though it requires some charge, this Sync move is his best version of Volt Tackle, hitting even harder than before, likely KOing his opponents. Its power is even stronger while Electric Terrain is out, but if it’s not already active, it’ll summon the terrain just like that.
  • (Masters only) G-Max Volt Crash: Gigantamax Pikachu will summon a huge ass lightning blast down his opponents, with incredible force. If it doesn’t finish his opponent off, it’ll inflict paralysis on his opponents as well. He can use either special attack or physical variant.
  • (Masters only) Max Guard: Gigantamax Pikachu will summon a barrier to block any attack once, letting him survive even more.
Blastoise

  • Type: Water
  • STAB Targets: Fire, Rock, Ground
  • Held Item(s):
  • Choice Scarf: Boosts base speed by 50%, but locks Blastoise into the first move they choose until they switch out of battle
  • Zoom Lens: Boosts Blastoise’s move accuracy
  • Blastoisinite: Allows Blastoise to turn into Mega Blastoise through activating the Key Stone
  • Leftovers: Gradually restores Blastoise’s HP overtime.
  • Custap Berry: Grants Blastoise’s next move priority when they drop below ¼ths HP.
  • Ability: Torrent (increase Water type attack power when below 33% HP)
  • Weaknesses: Electric & Grass
  • Resistance: Fire, Water, Ice, and Steel

The Water type starter of Kanto, the Shellfish Pokémon: Blastoise! Not the turtle Pokémon, weird right? Blastoises as a species are especially known for their great defensive stats, letting them similarly shrug off both physical and ranged attacks. Their offenses are similar to their defenses in being roughly comparable, though are a bit lower than the walking tank’s defensive prowess. Speaking of being a walking tank, Blastoise’s back cannons make for dangerous weapons, being able to blast pressurized water so strong it blasts through solid steel! This weight does make its speed decent at best, but this Pokémon’s raw endurance more than makes up for that issue. In fact, Pokkén Tournament establishes that it can use bursts of water to swiftly propel itself through the air, roll while encased in ice, or perform acrobatic kickflips for mobility. This game also shows that Blastoise can control beams of energy, cause shockwaves, manipulate water in midair, make water traps, or briefly encase foes in bubbles. Water-types like Blastoise have the additional perk of having their Water-type attacks boosted in rain, though said moves can be weakened by harsh sunlight.

Known Moves

  • Hydro Pump: Blastoise’s signature move, putting those high pressure cannons to good use to unleash devastatingly strong water blasts.
  • Hydro Cannon: A water starter’s ultimate attacking move, Hydro Cannon is basically pump on steroids, with the drawback that Blastoise needs to recharge a turn after using it.
  • Surf: Creates a wave which they then surf on, generating an AoE splash to hit all targets on the field.
  • Water Spout: Fires a column of water into the air, with devastating damage proportional to the user’s total HP.
  • Whirlpool: A binding technique that creates, you guessed it, a whirlpool underneath the victim, trapping them and negating a trainer’s ability to switch their Pokémon out for a short time. It’s worthy of note that Whirlpool can also be used to negate the effects of other whirlpools.
  • Water Pulse: Fires out a blast of water that has the chance to inflict Confusion on their opponent.
  • Aqua Tail: Imbues their tiny tail with hydrokinetic energy, spinning around and sacking the target with it.
  • Blizzard: Unleashes a gale of cold wind, hitting all targets on the field and potentially freezing them solid!
  • Flash Cannon: Fires out a beam of metallic energy that has the chance to lower the target’s special defense.
  • Focus Blast: Misses. But when it doesn’t, it’s an incredibly powerful fighting type blast with explosive force! Also sometimes lowers the foes special defense.
  • Dark Pulse: Fires a beam of dark energy that sometimes causes the opponent to flinch.
  • Ice Beam: Blasts out a beam of cryokinetic energy that has the potential to freeze opponents on contact.
  • Rock Slide: Rocks fall, everyone dies.
  • Aura Sphere: Creates a ball of pure fighting spirit, which locks onto the foe and hits them regardless of accuracy or evasion.
  • Dragon Pulse: Generates a beam of draconic energy.
  • Fake Out: A priority move only usable upon immediately entering the field, Blastoise taps the opponent, forcing them to flinch.
  • Earthquake: Causes an Earthquake, duh.
  • Iron Defense: Powers up their shell with metallic energy, increasing their physical defense.
  • Aqua Ring: Covers itself in a veil of water, slowly healing the user every turn.
  • Yawn: Blastoise yawns out a cloud…which subsequently causes the target to fall asleep after a turn.
  • Rapid Spin: Retreating into his shell, Blastoise spins around. Perfect for getting rid of any pesky hazards like stealth rocks.
  • Tail Whip: Blastoise will whip around his tail to lower his foe’s defense.

Mega Blastoise

  • Type: Water
  • STAB Targets: Fire, Rock, Ground
  • Stat Changes: +50 Special Attack, +20 Attack, +20 Defense, +10 Special Defense
  • Ability: Mega Launcher (powers up pulse and aura moves by 50%)
  • Weaknesses: Electric & Grass
  • Resistance: Fire, Water, Ice, and Steel

If Red wants to upgrade the tur- I mean shellfish, he can power up Blastoise into Mega Blastoise! Used by Red in the Battle Tree, this mega evolution amps up special defense a little while buffing physical stats by a slightly bigger amount. Sure there’s no speed increase, but who needs that when your special attack skyrockets to make ranged damage as strong as possible? In Pokkén Tournament, Mega Blastoise is even able to fire a gigantic beam of pressurized water, hooking itself to the ground with frozen water for leverage. Its special attack increase is so strong that Blastoise’s new third water gun is compared to a tank gun! Just don’t use the form for car washing, you might get a convertible.

Venusaur

  • Type: Grass/Poison
  • STAB Targets: Water, Ground, Rock, Grass, and Fairy
  • Held Item(s):
  • White Herb: Restores stat debuffs
  • Big Root: Increases the healing output of Venusaur’s life draining moves
  • Grassinium Z: Enables the usage of Bloom Doom and grass type Z-Moves.
  • Salac Berry: Increases Venusaur’s speed when they drop below 1/4ths HP
  • Venusaurite: Allows Venusaur to turn into Mega Venusaur through activating the Key Stone
  • Ability: Overgrow(increase Grass type attack power when below 33% HP)
  • Weaknesses: Fire, Ice, Flying, Psychic
  • Resistance: Water, Electric, Grass, Fighting, and Fairy

The Grass type starter of Kanto, the Seed Pokémon: Venusaur! This grassy dinosaur frog was Red’s Kanto starter in the Adventures manga series, but he’s still pretty notable in the game canon. He has decent physical and speed stats, but is notably pretty bulky against special ranged attacks. At the same time, his special attack is strong as well, meaning his ranged attacks are very formidable. With this good bulk and vines for binding, which are confirmed to work like the Vine Whip arms from the anime in the main games, Venusaur is a good addition to the champion’s team.

Known Moves

  • Giga Drain: A powerful draining move that steals the victim’s nutrients, healing Venusaur for half of the damage inflicted by it.
  • Solar Beam: Venusaur takes photosynthesis to a new extreme, pooling it together in a massive energy beam. Takes a bit to charge, but this can be sped up or slowed down depending on the current weather.
  • Frenzy Plant: A grass starter’s ultimate attacking move, Venusaur summons massive roots to batter the enemy with, at the cost of needing to recharge a turn after using it.
  • Leaf Storm: Venusaur whips up a huge storm of sharp leaves for devastating damage, but massively lowers their special attack after hitting with it.
  • Power Whip: Like vine whip, but with way more power behind it.
  • Energy Ball: Venusaur fires out a ball of pure life energy, which has the chance to lower the target’s special defense if it connects.
  • Grass Knot: A snaring technique that uses the target’s own weight against it, dealing higher damage the heavier the target is.
  • Mega Drain: The exact same thing as Giga Drain, but weaker.
  • Sludge Bomb: Venusaur fires out a barrage of sludge piles, which has the chance to poison the victim upon contact.
  • Venoshock: A Poison type attack, it's weaker than a move like Sludge Bomb initially, but outpaces it by doubling in power if the attacked enemy is poisoned.
  • Earthquake: You aren’t gonna believe what this attack makes.
  • Bulldoze: A weaker version of earthquake, but with the added benefit of always lowering the speed of any target it hits.
  • Sunny Day: As per the move’s description, Venusaur “intensifies the sun” to make the weather sunny. This also disperses other weather manipulating moves like Rain Dance or Snowscape.
  • Synthesis: Creates energy with photosynthesis, which it then uses to heal itself. The actual healing output is determined by the weather and amount of light available.
  • Z-Synthesis: Z-Power grants Synthesis the ability to cleanse Venusaur’s stat debuffs.
  • Sleep Powder: Venusaur fires out a cloud of sleep inducing spores.
  • Z-Sleep Powder: Z-Power grants Sleep Powder the ability to buff Venusaur’s speed.
  • Leech Seed: Venusaur launches parasitic seeds that plant themselves in the target, and drain their host’s HP by 1/16th each turn.
  • Z-Leech Seed: Z-Power grants Leech Seed the ability to cleanse Venusaur’s stat debuffs.
  • Ingrain: Venusaur plants itself into the grounds with roots, gradually healing itself over time. Worthy of note that this move physically locks Venusaur in place, preventing switching and fleeing.
  • Z-Ingrain: Z-Power grants Ingrain the ability to buff Venusaur’s special defense.
  • Toxic: Venusaur poisons the target with a rapidly intensifying toxin, with it dealing damage more the more the victim stays in the battle.
  • Roar: Roars. Oh and also forces the targets to flee or switch out.
  • Protect: Venusaur generates a protective forcefield to block out damage or status moves.
  • Substitute: Venusaur portions off a chunk of their HP and puts into a totally identical duplicate, protecting themselves from harm and status.
  • Amnesia: He forgor…but also raises his special defense by two stages!
  • Bloom Doom: With the might of Z-Power behind it, Venusaur creates an absolute massive beam of pure natural energy, vaporizing the target and granting life to hordes of plants around the blast site.

Mega Venusaur

  • Type: Grass/Poison
  • STAB Targets: Water, Ground, Rock, Grass, and Fairy
  • Stat Changes: +40 Defense, +18 Attack, +22 Special Attack, +20 Special Defense
  • Ability: Thick Fat (takes 50% less damage from fire and ice attacks)
  • Weaknesses: Fire*, Ice*, Flying, Psychic
  • Resistance: Water, Electric, Grass, Fighting, and Fairy

Want some more natural power? Red did, so in the Battle Tree, he was able to have his Venusaur mega evolve! With its flower growing and body strengthening, Venusaur is far more physically bulky with some extra special defense, making it comparably resistant to both physical and ranged attacks. A physical attack increase makes its direct strikes more formidable now, and its greater special attacks maintain its ranged potency. Venusaur’s previous weaknesses of fire and ice now have trouble breaking through thanks to Thick Fat reducing its super effectiveness.

Lapras

AKA the Pokémon that makes Lance 10x easier

  • Type: Water/Ice
  • STAB Targets: Fire, Ground, Rock, Grass, Flying, and Dragon
  • Held Item(s):
  • Sitrus Berry: Heals of ¼ th of Lapras’ HP.
  • Damp Rock: Extends the duration of Lapras’ rain inducing moves.
  • Normalium Z: Enables the usage of Breakneck Blitz and Normal type z-moves.
  • Bright Powder: Lowers the opponent’s accuracy by 10%.
  • Psychium Z: Enables the usage of Shattered Psyche and Psychic type z-moves.
  • Ability: Shell Armor/Water Absorb (has been seen with both an equal number of times); (gain immunity to critical hits / heal from received water type attacks rather than being damaged by them)
  • Weaknesses: Electric, Grass, Fighting, Rock
  • Resistance: Ice, Water (immunity)

Not sailing through any Orange Islands today, but definitely ready to sail to victory: Lapras, the Transport Pokémon! Red was giving this intelligent Pokémon after saving a Silph Co. employee. With its large size and tough shell, Lapras has a decent physical defense along with a solid special defense. Where its defense excels however is thanks to its large HP stat, making its defenses seem far higher than they are as the sea creature shrugs off all sorts of hits. Its speed stat is unfortunately rather poor (in battle to be clear, not for sea travel), but its solid offensive stats for both physical and ranged interactions makes it more than capable of surprising foes who’ll just assume it’s a wall and nothing else.

Known Moves

  • Brine: A decently strong blast of water that will double in power if the enemy is below half health when it hits.
  • Hydro Pump: Lapras fires out a strong blast of water to blow away foes.
  • Surf: Creates a wave which they then surf on, generating an AoE splash to hit all targets on the field.
  • Waterfall: When Lapras wants to deal direct in-your-face physical damage, they can use Waterfall as they pressure the opponent with a tidal uppercut. It also has a 30% chance to make the opponent flinch.
  • Blizzard: Unleashes a gale of cold wind, hitting all targets on the field and potentially freezing them solid!
  • Ice Beam: Blasts out a beam of cryokinetic energy that has the potential to freeze opponents on contact.
  • Ice Shard: For a quick physical ice hit, this priority move can be used to hit the foe with an ice shard in the blink of an eye.
  • Body Slam: Lapras can jump onto an opponent with their whole body, dealing good normal type damage with a 30% paralysis chance.
  • Psychic: Lapras can pressure the enemy with strong telekinetic power, lifting the enemy and pressuring them with psychic damage.
  • Thunderbolt: The standard accurate but powerful lightning bolt that most Electric types use, which can paralyze most foes. Why does Lapras learn this actually?
  • Thunder: Misses. When it doesn’t though, Thunder is a stronger Thunderbolt with a greater paralysis chance of 30%.
  • Megahorn: A rather brutal ramming attack with, well, Lapras’ horn. This bug type move is very damaging though mind the only 85% accuracy.
  • Sheer Cold: For maximum ice type damage, Lapras can attack someone with the sheer force of cold. Freezing them and breaking them apart for gigantic damage, sometimes even a one shot on relative opponents, makes sense as it’s an absolute-zero attack. The catch is this move is rather lacking in accuracy.
  • Rain Dance: Lapras can perform special movements to manifest rainy weather, boosting water type move power and decreasing the strength of fire.
  • Confuse Ray: A psychic energy projectile that causes the target to be rendered confused when hit, leaving them to potentially hit each other when trying to execute actions.
  • Rest: At the cost of falling asleep temporarily, Lapras is able to get a full heal and undo other status conditions besides sleep.
  • Z-Rest: Z-Power grants Rest the ability to undo stat debuffs.
  • Sleep Talk: To act while still sleeping, Lapras can talk in its sleep to randomly use one of its other moves in its arsenal despite the status condition.
  • Z-Sleep Talk: Z-Power grants Sleep Talk the ability to raise critical hit ratio when used, as well as convert whatever move is auto-selected into the Z-version of that attack.
  • Perish Song: With a rather haunting song, in three turns, every foe that listens to it will faint…including Lapras if they don’t switch out.
  • Safeguard: A mysterious force or barrier that prevents any status problems.
  • Mist: Lapras releases a mysterious mist that prevents stat decreases to them and their allies.
Snorlax

  • Type: Normal
  • STAB Targets: Gen 2 Metagame
  • Held Item(s):
  • Quick Claw: Gives Snorlax a 20% chance of automatically moving first.
  • Sitrus Berry: Restores ¼ th of Snorlax’s HP when eaten.
  • Life Orb: Increases the power of Snorlax’s attacking moves by 30%, at the cost of 1/10th of their HP per move.
  • Assault Vest: Increases Snorlax’s special defense by 50%, but locks Snorlax out of using any non-attacking moves. (Red, it’s a SNORLAX, it doesn't need more.)
  • Ability: Thick Fat (gain resistance to fire and ice type attacks)
  • Weaknesses: Fighting
  • Resistance: Ghost (immunity)

Big boy here: Snorlax, the Sleeping Pokémon! When it’s not blocking bridges with its iconic naps (thank you Mr. Fuji for your Poké Flute), this big blob can be a serious menace on the battlefield. Its ranged attacks and physical defense are notably weak compared to its allies, sure, and that horrible speed stat definitely doesn’t help things either. But good LORD that base HP stat of a whopping 160 makes it far more bulky physically. Combined with its high special defense stat, and ranged attacks will practically bounce off of the sleepy doofus. Not to mention its strong physical attacks means that it absolutely cannot be ignored: leave him on the side, and the big boy will crush you.

In Masters, Red’s Snorlax gains the ability to Gigantamax. He obviously hasn’t done this in mainline canon yet, but we felt the need to mention he gains even more health and access to max moves. Also he’s fucking huge at 35.0 metres dang.

Known Moves

  • Body Slam: Snorlax can jump onto an opponent with their whole body, dealing good normal type damage with a 30% paralysis chance.
  • Snore: If Snorlax is asleep, it can still attack with a strong soundwave by using this move.
  • Giga Impact: To maximize damage output, Snorlax can charge into the enemy with full force, dealing huge damage at the cost of needing some recharge time.
  • Return: The power of friendship! No really, thanks to high friendship, Snorlax is able to slam foes with high power for good normal type damage.
  • Double-Edge: In exchange for taking some recoil damage, Snorlax can ram into an enemy with extreme physical normal type damage. Does the name make sense?
  • Crunch: A dark type bite attack that can lower defense.
  • Shadow Ball: A cannon ball of ghost type energy that can be flung at foes.
  • Blizzard: Unleashes a gale of cold wind, hitting all targets on the field and potentially freezing them solid!
  • Earthquake: By causing devastating force to the ground, Snorlax can cause a strong type omnidirectional ground type attack in the form of, well, read the attack name.
  • Fissure: By directly sending the enemy below into a Fissure in the ground, Snorlax can deal absurd ground type damage, with this move being strong enough to one shot comparable Pokémon. However, it does suffer from a low accuracy problem.
  • High Horsepower: For more direct ground type damage, Snorlax can manifest its inner horse and directly stomp on an enemy.
  • Seed Bomb: For strong grass type damage, Snorlax can throw explosive seeds at foes.
  • Heavy Slam: To truly take advantage of its weight, this steel type body slam attack is strengthened up to a center point relative to how much heavier Snorlax is than the target.
  • Wild Charge: To shock unsuspecting foes, Snorlax can pull off a wild electric jump into a smashing strike with his body. Should be noted it does cause recoil damage, so abuse is not advised with this move.
  • Hidden Power (Flying): Manifests an energy wave of a specific typing. In Snorlax’s case, it’s flying type energy.
  • Counter: After receiving a physical attack, returns the power twice over back to sender for massive counter-damage.
  • Amnesia: He also forgor…but also raises his special defense by two stages!
  • Rest: At the cost of falling asleep temporarily, Snorlax is able to get a full heal and undo other status conditions besides sleep. Sleepy boi.
  • Sleep Talk: Thankfully, even if he’s asleep, he isn’t helpless as he can randomly use one of his other moves with this one.
  • Recycle: If Snorlax uses up its berry in battle, it can recover it with this move without having to pick up a new one!
  • Belly Drum: At the cost of half of its health, Snorlax can uber-charge its physical attack to the max possible increase to make its physical strikes unsurvivable.
  • Protect: For some temporary protection, Snorlax can manifest an energy field to block all types of attacks, would they be direct damage or indirect status moves. It can be used continuously, but doing so does cause an exponentially increasing chance of failure until there’s a break in the move usage.
  • Toxic: Snorlax poisons the target with a rapidly intensifying toxin, with it dealing damage more the more the victim stays in the battle.
  • (Masters only) You and Me!: Basically a status move that reduces sync move cooldown, heavily raises critical hit rate and applies super effectiveness to his next attack.
  • (Masters only) Heaviest Sleeper Normal Impact: One of Snorlax’s strongest moves where he super charges an impact even surpassing the giga variant for massive damage. It requires the sync gauge to charge, but the effect is worth it.
  • (Masters only) G-Max Replenish: Alongside dealing massive normal-type damage to his opponent, it’ll also restore one MP to Snorlax’s moves, letting him use it longer.
  • (Masters only) Max Knuckle: Upon using this fighting-type max move that deals massive damage while Gigatamax, it’ll also raise his attack stat by two ranks, letting him hit even harder next time.
Espeon

  • Type: Psychic
  • STAB Targets: Fighting & Poison
  • Held Item: King’s Rock (Gives Espeon’s attacking moves the chance to inflict flinches)
  • Ability: (we don’t know, they haven’t been in a game with abilities)
  • Weaknesses: Bug, Ghost, and Dark
  • Resistance: Fighting & Psychic

After Red was given the Evolution Pokémon known as Eevee in Celadon City, he bonded and grew to be close friends with them, which was the driving force to evolve them into a powerful psychic Johto evolution: Espeon, the Sun Pokémon! They are extremely loyal to their trainers to the point they can use precognitive powers to protect them from harm.

Espeon isn’t exactly the most bulky physically, but it’s a powerhouse when it comes to special attacks, especially its telekinesis. It’s also very fast, usually able to get the hit first. Since Red got his Espeon in the Gen 2 games, it’s ability is unclear, but if it’s similar to other Espeons in later gens, it’s possible to have the Synchronize ability, which basically lets him pass on burn, poison or paralyze status onto the foe that inflicted it. Later games may have forgotten about Espeon in favor of Lapras, but we certainly didn’t forget how strong Red’s psychic partner can be!

Known Moves

  • Psychic: The quintessential attack for psychic types (go figure), Espeon fires out a wave of sheer telekinetic force.
  • Swift: Espeon fires out a bunch of energy stars in an attack that “never misses” its target. In Origins, this is achieved by the projectiles having homing properties.
  • Mud-Slap: POCKET MUD! Also always lowers the foe’s accuracy on hit.
  • Bite: Bites. Chance to flinch because like, ow.
  • Hidden Power (Fire): Manifests an energy wave of a specific typing. In Espeon’s case, it’s fire type energy.
  • Reflect: Espeon creates a protective wall of light around it and its allies, forming an ‘armor’ of sorts against physical attacks.
  • Psybeam: A weaker but still effective beam of psychic energy that might confuse the target.
  • Psych Up: A weird move that copies any stat changes the foe has by self-hypnosis.
  • Morning Sun: With the power of the sun, Espeon can heal half his HP.
Charizard

  • Type: Fire/Flying
  • STAB Targets: Grass, Ice, Bug, Steel, and Fighting
  • Held Item(s):
  • Focus Sash: Allows Charizard to remain standing on 1 HP when hit with an attack that would otherwise one shot them.
  • Salac Berry: Increases Charizard’s speed when they drop below ¼ th HP.
  • Charti Berry: Weakens the damage taken by a super-effective rock type attack.
  • Charizardite X & Y: Allows Charizard to turn into either of its mega evolutions through activating the Key Stone
  • Ability: Blaze (increase Fire type attack power when below 33% HP)
  • Weaknesses: Water, Electric, and Rock
  • Resistance: Fire, Grass, Fighting, Bug, Steel, and Fairy. Ground immunity.

Now we’re getting another very popular Pokémon; Charizard, the Flame Pokémon! Starting out as Charmander, he is one of the first Pokémon Red gets from Professor Oak, being the Fire-type starter of the Kanto region. According to the Pokedex, they are fierce and powerful, challenging strong opponents and getting stronger the more their flame burns. Charizard is one of the most iconic Pokémon, and for a good reason. Just look at how much one of his cards costs! If Pikachu is the face of Pokémon, then Charizard and the Charmander line as a whole can be considered the second face of the series.

This isn’t lost with Red either. In the Origins continuity, Red’s starter here is Charmander. In this series, Charmander grew alongside Red, as they went through the Kanto region and fought Team Rocket, the Gym Leaders, the Elite Four, and eventually they even defeated Blue and his Blastoise. Other trained Charizards in Pokkén Tournament are no stranger to fighting hand to hand through whipping its tail, punching, footdiving, kicking, biting, and headbutting. Their control over the fire they generate lets them launch exploding fireball variations of its flame breath or even stomp down to make flaming columns erupt from the ground. Similarly, their Flying-Type powers lets them attack with generated winds all around its body.

Known Moves

  • Flamethrower: The most iconic fire type attack in the series. Charizard can unleash a large stream of fire at the enemy for strong damage, with a chance to burn.
  • Fire Spin: To trap foes, Charizard can surround them in a ring of fire, preventing escaping and dealing passive damage over time.
  • Flare Blitz: For high physical damage, Charizard can blast into enemies as a giant fire ball, putting the hurt on them in exchange for some recoil damage.
  • Blast Burn: The strongest move a fire type starter can learn, Charizard nukes the field with absurd fiery damage, with the cost of needing a bit to recharge after usage.
  • Fire Blast: A mighty kanji shaped, you know, this attack is stronger than Flamethrower in exchange for a bit of an accuracy drop. Small chance to burn foes.
  • Fire Fang: Sharpening its fangs in flames, Charizard can deliver a red hot bite.
  • Heat Wave: A gust of wind powered by devastating heat, it can burn away multiple foes at once.
  • Wing Attack: A physical flying type move involving battering the enemy with Charizard’s wings.
  • Air Slash: Putting its flying typing to good use, Charizard creates a current of air so sharp it can slash away at foes, catching them off guard with a chance to flinch.
  • Slash: A mighty cutting attack with a heightened critical hit ratio.
  • Smokescreen: Using…we assume smoke from his mouth, Charizard will lower the foe’s accuracy, making it harder to hit him.
  • Scary Face: With a frightening face, Charizard can lower the foe’s speed greatly.
  • Dragon Pulse: Powering up with draconic energy, Charizard can release a devastating energy breath to destroy its enemies from afar.
  • Dragon Claw: Charging up its claws with draconic energy, Charizard can cut away at foes.
  • Dragon Rush: A move that makes up for less than average accuracy with a mighty physical draconic tackle! Letting Charizard rush into foes like some sort of dragon.
  • Focus Blast: Again, it misses. But again, when it doesn’t, it’s an incredibly powerful fighting type blast with explosive force!
  • Shadow Claw: Charizard can channel ghostly energy into its claws, letting it slash enemies like a classic slasher. Has a high critical hit ratio to boot.
  • Rock Slide: Causes a flurry of rocks to fall onto all enemies, with the extra bonus of an annoying flinch chance. Our condolences to all VGC doubles players.
  • Solar Beam: Charizard takes photosynthesis (somehow?) to a new extreme, pooling it together in a massive energy beam. Takes a bit to charge, but this can be sped up or slowed down depending on the current weather.
  • Will-O-Wisp: Charizard creates a sphere of ‘sinister’ flame, which upon contact with the target inflicts them with Burn.
  • Belly Drum: At the cost of half of its health, Charizard can uber-charge its physical attack to the max possible increase to make its physical strikes unsurvivable.
  • Dragon Dance: A quick mythical dance that slightly increases Charizard’s physical attack and speed when performed.
  • Swift: Manifests a flurry of star projectiles that can be shot at multiple opponents, dealing good normal type damage while having high accuracy.
  • Seismic Toss: He may not spin you across the whole world, but he’ll totally flip your world upside down with this one. Charizard tosses the opponent into orbit, dealing damage equivalent to his in-game level in terms of hitpoints once they hit the ground.
  • Mega Punch: One last Mega Punch! Ahem, Charizard charges up an incoming physical punch, dealing mighty normal type damage.
  • Mega Kick: Rather than punching the target, this move focuses on kicking instead, though basically causes the same result.
  • (Masters only) My Destiny!: At the cost of lowering defense, raises Charizard’s special attack and speed by 3 stages and if Charizard had already Mega Evolved, it’ll raise his physical attack by that amount too.
  • (Masters only) Living Legend Blast Burn: Automatically changing Charizard into Mega Charizard X, it’s a much stronger variant of the Blast Burn move, dealing massive fire damage to his enemies, though it does take a bit to charge this sync move.

Mega Charizard Y

  • Type: Fire/Flying
  • STAB Targets: Grass, Ice, Bug, Steel, and Fighting
  • Stat Changes: +50 Special Attack, +30 Special Defense, +20 Attack
  • Ability: Drought (turns the sunlight harsh when entering battle)
  • Weaknesses: Water, Electric, & Rock
  • Resistance: Fire, Grass, Fighting, Bug, Steel, Fairy

Mega Charizard Y is one of the two Mega Evolutions that Charizard gets (because of course Charizard gets two). Retaining the Fire and Flying typing, this form gives Charizard a massive boost in Special Attack, a good boost to his Special Defense, and somehow to his Attack as well, rather than to Speed. Mega Charizard Y is famously very powerful, especially in Double Battle formats where he gets to set up the Sun with his new Ability Drought, then blasts enemies with powerful Heat Waves. In Sun and Moon, Red gets this Mega Evolution in the Battle Tree.

Mega Charizard X

  • Type: Fire/Dragon
  • STAB Targets: Grass, Dragon, Ice, Bug, Steel
  • Stat Changes: +46 Attack, +21 Special Attack, +33 Defense
  • Ability: Tough Claws (powers up attacks that make direct contact by 30%)
  • Weaknesses: Rock, Dragon, Ground
  • Resistance: Fire, Grass, Bug, Steel, Electric

The Mega Evolution that’s often given the spotlight in the anime and various spinoff or crossover fighting games, Mega Charizard X’s new typing grants it a type combination that covers them more defensively. Additionally, on top of losing the giant weakness to Rock, this Mega Evolution focuses more on physical offensive output with consistent boosts upon every hit with Tough Claws. By blasting the ground with its flames, other Mega Charizard X were able to cause eruptions from below or generate directed flames by flapping their wings. This is another Mega Evolution Red has access to in addition to the Y variant in the Battle Tree, with Dragon Dance for further boosts to strength and speed in the midst of battle.

In Rotation

Don’t worry, we’re not just leaving it at his main team. Given the fact that the canonical explanation for the six Pokémon limit is a Pokémon League mandate, rather than any physical limitation, it stands to reason that Red in theory could carry much more than his regular lineup on hand. Additionally, due to dialogue in Pokémon Crystal, we know at bare minimum that Red has completed Kanto’s regional dex, this combined with the few Johto additions he’s been seen with, should give him access to upwards of 151 Pokémon (and Red having all these in rotation Pokémon in FRLG in one game is definitely possible). But don’t think we’re just gonna let Red jump Tai with an entire country’s worth of Pokémon, as mentioned above he has clear favorites.

This section is for all the other Pokémon across his later appearances in the series that appear to be in rotation with his iconic Mt. Silver team, as well as any other noteworthy Pokémon we feel the need to bring proper attention to (though they will not be deciding factors in the verdict should it come down to it). Keep in mind that some of the Pokémon here were shown off prior to the introduction of in-game abilities, so they will not have abilities listed (unless they only have one non-hidden ability, in which case they should have that ability by default for obvious reasons). They also don’t have items, but considering held items were usable since Generation 2 where Red started to show off these additional Pokémon, maybe he just didn’t know what Leftovers were at the time.

Arcanine

  • Type: Fire
  • STAB Targets: Grass, Ice, Bug, and Steel
  • Weaknesses: Water, Rock, and Ground
  • Resistance: Fire, Grass, Bug, Steel, and Fairy

Shown off in the Let’s Go Pikachu! and Eevee! games, we have the Legendary Pokémon: Arcanine! He may not be an actual legend to be clear, but this good fiery boy is still more than capable in battle. It has decent enough defenses which work well with its solid HP stat and good speed. Where it excels are its strong offenses, with both its physical and ranged attacks having a respectable bite to them (though it is a little stronger physically).

Known Moves

  • Heat Wave: Blasts all enemies with a wave of hot air.
  • Crunch: Gives the opponent a little nibble….that’s so traumatic it can lower their defense.
  • Will-O-Wisp: Arcanine creates a sphere of ‘sinister’ flame, which upon contact with the target inflicts them with Burn.
  • Roar: Roars so loudly, it either terrifies the target into fleeing, or physically launches them far away. Both effects are consistently described, so it’s unclear which is more valid an interpretation.
Jolteon

  • Type: Electric
  • STAB Targets: Water and Flying
  • Ability: Volt Absorb (automatically absorbs Electric attacks and heals from them)
  • Weaknesses: Ground
  • Resistance: Electric, Flying, and Steel

In Pokémon Stadium (confirmed a female here!) and Origins, Red uses a Jolteon, the evolved form of Eevee when exposed to a Thunder Stone. It’s powerful enough to blast 10000-volt lightning bolts, and dang her hair is spiky. What it lacks in physical defense it makes up for with blistering speed and lightning power, being among the fastest of Red’s Pokémon.

Known Moves

  • Thunderbolt: The standard accurate but powerful lightning bolt that most Electric types use, which can paralyze most foes.
  • Double Kick: Jolteon will do a, well, kick with her paws two times in a row striking with the force of a fighting type move.
  • Thunder: Though lacking in accuracy (though guaranteed in the rain), Jolteon will strike a powerful huge lightning bolt at her enemies, sometimes even paralyzing them.
  • Thunder Wave: Though not an attacking move, it’ll paralyze foes instantly with high accuracy.
  • Bite: Jolteon will bite with this dark type move, which may flinch her opponents sometimes.
  • Quick Attack: Though Jolteon hardly needs it, should she need to guarantee a hit first, she’ll gain a burst of speed and tackle her foes with this move.
Machamp

  • Type: Fighting
  • STAB Targets: Normal, Rock, Ice, Dark, Steel
  • Weaknesses: Psychic, Flying, and Fairy
  • Resistance: Rock, Dark, and Bug

The Shokan-Slayer and Superpower Pokémon: Machamp! This four armed guy has great utility in hand to hand thanks to its, well, hands. Some can push around mountains, and Red’s Machamp that appeared in Let’s Go Pikachu! and Eevee! is certainly no pushover. I mean c'mon look who’s using him. Anyhow, while Machamp has poor speed and special attack, its defenses are solid enough to enable its extremely dangerous physical attacking power. In Pokkén Tournament, Machamp are even able to fire energy shots with their punches.

Known Moves

  • Superpower: Called ‘Brute Force’ in Japan, Machamp strikes the opponent with everything it’s got! After using this technique, their attack and defense drops.
  • Fire Blast: A mighty kanji shaped, you know, this attack is stronger than Flamethrower in exchange for a bit of an accuracy drop. Small chance to burn foes. Ok but how the hell does he know this move!?
  • Earthquake: Machamp strikes the ground with tremendous force, shaking the earth and striking everything unlucky enough to be on two feet.
  • Hyper Beam: KA….ME….
Dragonite

  • Type: Dragon and Flying
  • STAB Targets: Grass, Bug, and Fighting (he has no Dragon moves)
  • Ability: Inner Focus (Prevents Dragonite from being flinched, as well as preventing its offense from being reduced by intimidation)
  • Weaknesses: Dragon, Ice, Fairy, and Rock
  • Resistance: Grass, Fire, Water, Bug, and Fighting. Ground immunity

The original draconic Pseudo-Legendary of the series, showing up in Red’s rotation in Pokémon Stadium 2, the Dragon Pokémon: Dragonite! Given its Pseudo status, it should be no surprise that its stat spread is absolutely incredible. Dragonite’s speed is its weakest stat but is still ok, but from there everything else is impressive. Its defensive stats and HP are all good, and its physical attack is staggeringly high. In addition to that, its special attack stat is still strong as well, meaning Dragonite can be a threat from both close and long range.

Known Moves

  • Fly: By flying high up into the air, Dragonite can amp up a mighty descent that’ll deal heavy damage once it crashes into foes.
  • Body Slam: Dragonite can jump onto an opponent with their whole body, dealing good normal type damage with a 30% paralysis chance.
  • Thunder Wave: Though not an attacking move, it’ll paralyze foes instantly with high accuracy.
  • Hidden Power (Fighting): Manifests an energy wave of a specific typing. In Dragonite's case, it’s fighting type energy.
Tauros

  • Type: Normal
  • STAB Targets: Gen 1 Metagame
  • Weakness: Fighting
  • Resistance: Ghost immunity

Only one of them is here this time, but that’s alright. It’s the Raging Bull Pokémon: Tauros! Showing up on the team in Pokémon Stadium 2, the bull’s primary weakness is long range due to its bad special attack and okay special defense. That’s alright though, because it’s ok HP stat is helped out by its good attack and defense being launched into close-range by its great speed stat. Letting Tauros get in close and ram into unfortunate red-colored foes. Not to be confused with his trainer.

Known Moves

  • Headbutt: A decently strong normal type attack, the user does what it reads on the tin, with the move having the perk of a good flinching chance.
  • Earthquake: Tauros strikes the ground with tremendous force, shaking the earth and striking everything unlucky enough to be on two feet.
  • Iron Tail: A strong steel type move involving the user hardening their tail before slamming it into foes. In exchange for annoying accuracy, it has a chance to lower physical defense stats.
  • Hyper Beam: Rip Gen 1 Hyper Beam mechanics. By storing up strong normal type energy, Tauros can release a gigantic blast of power to destroy targets. The heavy power does result in some recharge time though.
Raikou

  • Type: Electric
  • STAB Targets: Water and Flying
  • Ability: Pressure (Doubles the amount of power points an opponent consumes when using a move)
  • Weaknesses: Ground
  • Resistance: Electric, Flying, and Steel

Big one here, appearing in Red’s Pokémon Stadium 2 rotation. A Legendary Beast, the Thunder Pokémon, Raikou. As a Legendary Pokémon, Raikou’s stats are unsurprisingly incredible. Its physical defense is decent and its physical attack is slightly better, but the former is mitigated by its good HP stat. From there, Raikou has good special defense, and great special attack and speed. Letting it run around foes while delivering some of the most dangerous Thunderbolts around.

Known Moves

  • Thunderbolt: The standard accurate but powerful lightning bolt that most Electric types use, which can paralyze most foes.
  • Bite: NO BOIT!
  • Iron Tail: A strong steel type move involving the user hardening their tail before slamming it into foes. In exchange for annoying accuracy, it has a chance to lower physical defense stats.
  • Hidden Power (Ice): Manifests an energy wave of a specific typing. In Raikou’s case, it’s ice type energy.
Entei

  • Type: Fire
  • STAB Targets: Grass, Ice, Bug, and Steel
  • Ability: Pressure (Doubles the amount of power points an opponent consumes when using a move)
  • Weaknesses: Water, Rock, and Ground
  • Resistance: Fire, Grass, Bug, Steel, and Fairy

Entei, the Volcano Pokémon, is yet another Legendary Beast from Johto used in Red’s Pokémon Stadium 2 roster. Boasting a mighty physical attack, speed, and health stat spread as its focus, Entei’s said to have not only been born when a volcano erupted, but it can cause volcanic eruptions outright with its bellowing roars. Taking on Red’s Entei means contending with no less than the manifested representation of an active volcano.

Known Moves

  • Fire Blast: A mighty kanji shaped, you know, this attack is stronger than Flamethrower in exchange for a bit of an accuracy drop. Small chance to burn foes.
  • Bite: I’ll give you ONE guess.
  • Iron Tail: A strong steel type move involving the user hardening their tail before slamming it into foes. In exchange for annoying accuracy, it has a chance to lower physical defense stats.
  • Hidden Power (Ground): Manifests an energy wave of a specific typing. In Entei’s case, it’s ground type energy
Suicune

  • Type: Water
  • STAB Targets: Fire, Rock, and Ground
  • Ability: Pressure (Doubles the amount of power points an opponent consumes when using a move)
  • Weaknesses: Grass and Electric
  • Resistance: Fire, Water, Ice, and Steel

Finally, Red’s Pokémon Stadium 2 roundup of the Legendary Beasts obviously wouldn’t feel complete without the Aurora Pokémon, Suicune. Capable of encasing foes in large ice structures, attacking with its ribbons, summoning water pillars at a distance, and purifying even the most polluted water, Suicune focuses more on tankiness and versatility than its counterparts. With impressive health, defense, and special defense stats, along with generally respectable special attacks, it’d be no easy feat to take it down in the hands of a skilled Trainer.

Known Moves

  • Surf: Creates a wave which they then surf on, generating an AoE splash to hit all targets on the field.
  • Ice Beam: Blasts out a beam of cryokinetic energy that has the potential to freeze opponents on contact.
  • Roar: Roars so loudly, it either terrifies the target into fleeing, or physically launches them far away. Both effects are consistently described, so it’s unclear which is more valid an interpretation.
  • Hidden Power (Grass): Manifests an energy wave of a specific typing. In Suicune’s case, it’s grass type energy.
Typhlosion

  • Type: Fire
  • STAB Targets: Grass, Ice, Bug, Steel
  • Ability: Blaze (increase Fire type attack power when below 33% HP)
  • Weaknesses: Water, Ground, Rock
  • Resistance: Fire, Grass, Ice, Bug, Steel, Fairy

The final evolution of the Fire starter Cyndaquil found its way into Red’s hands in Pokémon Stadium 2. Known as the Volcano Pokémon, Typhlosion’s intense flames and all around stats with a focus on Special Attacks makes it a solid destructive heavy hitter on any Johto team. Although, Red likes to focus primarily on offense and mobility with his fiery friend… so really, why wouldn’t he just pick the fire dragon with the exact same 1 to 1 stat spread?

Known Moves

  • Flamethrower: The signature move of most fire Pokémon where they’ll release a torrent of flames from their mouths. Has a 10% chance to sometimes burn a foe too.
  • Quick Attack: The user heightens their speed massively temporarily, ramming into foes with a weaker but quicker priority normal type attack.
  • Thunder Punch: CHIDORI- I mean, an electricity amped punch with a chance to paralyze the foe.
  • Dig: Typhlosion digs underground to avoid attacks, before resurfacing to deal a strike empowered by ground type force to an unsuspecting foe.
Meganium

  • Type: Grass
  • STAB Targets: Water, Ground, Rock
  • Ability: Overgrow(increase Grass type attack power when below 33% HP)
  • Weaknesses: Fire, Flying, Poison, Ice, Bug
  • Resistance: Water, Grass, Electric, Ground

Maybe not the strongest starter around (mood), but Red has definitely still gotten use out of Meganium, the Herb Pokémon. Its decent stat spread outside of its defenses lets it be decent when it comes to mobility and offense, with its strong defenses making it a good hit taker. Packed with a healing aroma that can restore the nature around it, this Pokémon Stadium 2 team member isn’t falling behind its fellow Johto starters.

Known Moves

  • Razor Leaf: Fires a flurry of leaves at the current enemies, with a higher critical hit ratio to boot.
  • Body Slam: Meganium can jump onto an opponent with their whole body, dealing good normal type damage with a 30% paralysis chance.
  • Giga Drain: A powerful draining move that steals the victim’s nutrients, healing Meganium for half of the damage inflicted by it.
  • Synthesis: Creates energy with photosynthesis, which it then uses to heal itself. The actual healing output is determined by the weather and amount of light available.
Feraligatr

  • Type: Water
  • STAB Targets: Fire, Ground, Rock
  • Ability: Torrent (increase Water type attack power when below 33% HP)
  • Weaknesses: Grass, Electric
  • Resistance: Fire, Water, Ice, Steel

Watch out for this guy’s bite, it’s the Big Jaw Pokémon Feraligatr rounding out the Johto starter squad. It has decent stats across the board, similar to Meganium, additionally in that it has two exceptions. Those being its physical bulk and attack stats, letting it tank physical blows really well before dealing back strong physical blows of its own.

Known Moves

  • Surf: Creates a wave which they then surf on, generating an AoE splash to hit all targets on the field.
  • Slash: A mighty cutting attack with a heightened critical hit ratio.
  • Blizzard: Unleashes a gale of cold wind, hitting all targets on the field and potentially freezing them solid!
  • Bite: WHY DO FIVE OF THE WORLD CHAMPION’S POKEMON HAVE THIS MOVE??
Scizor

  • Type: Bug / Steel
  • STAB Targets: Grass, Psychic, Rock, Ice, Dark, Psychic
  • Weaknesses: Fire
  • Resistance: Steel, Grass, Psychic, Ice, Bug, Dragon, Steel, Psychic, Poison immunity

Quite possibly one of the coolest Bug Pokémon out there, Scizor the Pincer Pokémon and its steel body were a tough opponent to deal with. With a massive physical attack stat, solid defenses, and a near lack of vulnerabilities all around, Scizor didn’t have the strategies that came with Technician yet, but it was still a classic Johto powerhouse on Red’s team back in Pokémon Stadium 2.

Known Moves

  • Metal Claw: Scizor amplifies its cutting power with steel type energy, shredding away at foes while having a minor chance to further raise Scizor’s physical attack.
  • Quick Attack: The user heightens their speed massively temporarily, ramming into foes with a weaker but quicker priority normal type attack.
  • Slash: A mighty cutting attack with a heightened critical hit ratio.
  • Sleep Talk: To act while still sleeping, Scizor can talk in its sleep to randomly use one of its other moves in its arsenal despite the status condition.

Shame he didn’t get one in gen 4 or beyond.

Moltres

  • Type: Fire / Flying
  • STAB Targets: Fighting, Grass, Ice, Bug, Steel
  • Ability: Pressure (Doubles the amount of power points an opponent consumes when using a move)
  • Weaknesses: Water, Electric, Rock
  • Resistance: Fire, Fighting, Grass, Bug, Steel, Fairy, Ground immunity

The legendary bird that controls fire itself that lives in Victory Road (or Mt. Ember if you’re playing FRLG). Though Red has an obvious preference when it comes to Fire/Flying Pokémon, this bird should not be underestimated. It can turn the night sky red with flaps of its wings and should it get injured, they can take a dip in a volcano to heal itself. Moltres is actually pretty well rounded stat-wise, but is particularly strong in their special defense.

Known Moves

  • Sky Attack: This actually used to be Moltres’ signature move as a fun fact before it got more distributed. It has a long charge up time as Moltres stores energy but on the second turn, it’ll deal a devastating flying-type attack that can sometimes flinch.
  • Agility: Moltres will ease their body to move much faster than normal.
  • Fire Spin: Moltres can create a vortex of fire to trap their foes, preventing them from escaping. Will deal continual damage the longer they’re trapped.
  • Leer: Moltres inflict fear into their opponent’s eyes, lowering their defenses.
  • Endure: Should Moltres be about to take a fatal hit, they’ll endure and survive with 1HP left. Could come in clutch…though the success of the move decreases if used repeatedly.
  • Flamethrower: The signature move of most fire Pokémon where they’ll release a torrent of flames from their mouths. Has a 10% chance to sometimes burn a foe too.
Zapdos

  • Type: Electric / Flying
  • STAB Targets: Fighting, Water, Flying, Grass, Bug
  • Ability: Pressure (Doubles the amount of power points an opponent consumes when using a move)
  • Weaknesses: Rock, Ice
  • Resistance: Fighting, Flying, Grass, Bug, Steel, Ground immunity

Found in Kanto’s Power Plant, this legendary bird Pokémon is truly fearsome. It usually appears with a gigantic thunder storm and in case you couldn’t tell, they are REALLY good at controlling lightning bolts. Zapdos is actually pretty well rounded in terms of stats, but excels with its special attack and speed, letting it strike with fierce ferocity with its lightning. Though Red usually prefers his trusty Pikachu as his electric type, this is one bird you really don’t want to mess with.

Known Moves:

  • Drill Peck: With their beak acting like a drill…somehow, it’ll strike their opponents with a corkscrew blow with this powerful flying type move.
  • Thunder: If you’re a gambling person with its 70% accuracy, Zapdos will strike their opponents with ferocious lightning bolts from the skies (though unless you’re using a rain team, you should probably just use Thunderbolt…)
  • Agility: If Zapdos needs more speed, they can relax their muscles and increase their movement immensely.
  • Light Screen: Zapdos can put up a barrier of energy that’ll cut down special attacks by half. Should Zapdos exit the battlefield, the barrier can still persist after.
  • Detect: KA KA KA KACHI DAZE- I mean, Zapdos will take a protective stance and evade all attacks should an opponent try to hit them. It should be noted, it cannot be spammed and requires Zapdos to wait another turn before being able to use it again.
  • Thunder Wave: Zapdos can fire a bolt of electricity to paralyze their foes, slowing them down immensely.
Articuno

  • Type: Ice / Flying
  • STAB Targets: Fighting, Flying, Grass, Ground, Bug, Dragon
  • Ability: Pressure (Doubles the amount of power points an opponent consumes when using a move)
  • Weaknesses: Electric, Rock, Steel
  • Resistance: Grass, Bug, Ground immunity

Found in the Seaform Islands (after some annoying moving block puzzles that require using the HM Strength), Articuno is the legendary bird Pokémon of ice. They can create blizzards by freezing the moisture in the air and can make it snow with just a flap of its wings. Its stats are well rounded with an emphasis on defense (though with a typing like Ice-Flying, it has to be careful!) Though if it plays its cards right, Articuno might just outlast the competition.

Known Moves

  • Ice Beam: Blasts out a beam of cryokinetic energy that has the potential to freeze opponents on contact.
  • Blizzard: Unleashes a gale of cold wind, hitting all targets on the field and potentially freezing them solid!
  • Agility: Should Articuno need more speed, it can ease its body to rapidly increase it.
  • Mist: Articuno will cover their team with a white mist, preventing any stat reduction so long as it’s up.
  • Mind Reader: Articuno will predict their foe’s next movements, to ensure their next attacks will hit for sure (hopefully they don’t mind some Blizzards…)
  • Powder Snow: A semi-weak but decent gust of powdery snow that can hit multiple targets at once. Could freeze if the opponent isn’t careful.
Mewtwo

Huh, so we do get Mewtwo vs (Black)Wargreymon in some way this blog-

  • Type: Psychic
  • STAB Targets: Fighting, Poison
  • Ability: Pressure (Doubles the amount of power points an opponent consumes when using a move)
  • Weaknesses: Bug, Ghost, Dark
  • Resistance: Fighting, Psychic

Yeah, let’s address this elephant in the room. Found in the Cerulean Cave after Red became the Kanto Champion, the Genetic Pokémon Mewtwo was a Pokémon created from Mew’s genes and crafted to be the strongest Pokémon in existence. Though horrific experiments made Mewtwo turn incredibly violent and distrusting of people, perhaps after Red caught him, he would later bond with him and his kindness and slowly begin to show trust again. (No this isn’t a valid way to give Mewtwo creation trio scaling, he has other methods, stop that!)

Mewtwo’s undoubtedly one of the strongest Pokémon Red has in his rotation, which makes sense since it’s a legendary after all. It’s very well rounded in stats with incredibly high special attack and blistering speed in particular. While we’ll mainly just list their known level up moves, with Red having access to all the TMs in FRLG, very few have managed to survive against the legendary psychic Pokémon.

Known Moves:

  • Psychic: Mewtwo can pressure the enemy with strong telekinetic power, lifting the enemy and pressuring them with psychic damage.
  • Barrier: Mewtwo sets up a barrier of energy, raising its defensive stat.
  • Recover: With a quick usage of energy, Mewtwo can heal half of its health in an instant.
  • Swift: Manifests a flurry of star projectiles that can be shot at multiple opponents, dealing good normal type damage while having high accuracy.
  • Future Sight: Psychic energy is channeled and then seemingly disappears, as Mewtwo sets it up to be released as a massive wave onto the enemy after a short while for guaranteed, delayed damage.
  • Disable: Using this move after the target’s last used move blocks off said move, disabling the usage of that technique for a period of time. Multiple moves cannot be disabled at once, and this only applies to active moves rather than passive abilities.
Mew

  • Type: Psychic
  • STAB Targets: Fighting, Poison
  • Ability: Synchronize (if inflicted with a status condition, the opponent who inflicted it becomes inflicted by the same status condition as well)
  • Weaknesses: Bug, Ghost, Dark
  • Resistance: Fighting, Psychic

The other most notable Pokémon Red should have had in his possession at one point, Mewtwo’s predecessor: the New Species Pokémon, Mew. This little goober may seem cute, but it’s incredibly powerful, and it’s easy to see how its DNA could produce something as powerful as Mewtwo. It has a completely balanced stat distribution, meaning its projectiles will hit as hard as its punches, it’ll take punches as good as it does projectiles, and its speed and HP are remarkable. Alongside this even spread, all of its individual stats are good, but its most standout trait is being able to learn every single move that has been copied as a Technical Machine ever. For a full list of every move Mew can learn because of this fact, check this link here, but below we’ll list its level up moves.

Known Moves

  • Transform: Through shapeshifting, Mew can turn into the opponent. This will result in Mew copying all of their physical stats except for their health stat, and gaining the opponent’s move set. This effect will be undone if Mew is switched out of battle or KOd.
  • Metronome: By wagging its finger, Mewtwo will proceed to use one of any moves in the entire Pokémon world, including moves exclusive to certain Pokémon. This can range from calling god’s judgement itself to blast away the opponent, to doing nothing. We’re not going to list every single move in the series, so if you’re curious, just google the full list.
  • Psychic: Mew can pressure the enemy with strong telekinetic power, lifting the enemy and pressuring them with psychic damage.
  • Ancient Power: Mystical rocks are conjured and thrown at the foe for a basic projectile attack, though there is the extra perk of the small chance of a boost to every single stat minus health, so the lack of power is compensated for.
  • Pound: A basic slap attack. Mew can learn hundreds of moves by the way, take this move’s inclusion as you will.
  • Mega Punch: Mew charges up an incoming physical punch, dealing mighty normal type damage.

Taichi & Agumon

Botamon and Koromon

  • Stage: In-Training I/Baby I (Botamon) In-Training II/Baby II (Koromon)
  • Type: Slime (Botamon) Lesser (Koromon)
  • Attribute: None
  • Field: Virus Busters

Agumon’s baby forms with an insatiable appetite. These forms are not built for combat whatsoever and are extremely weak and vulnerable. Their only form of offense is attacking with acid bubbles in hopes that foes are intimidated enough to give them a chance to run away. But hey, they look adorable, don’t they?

Agumon (Himself)

  • Stage: Rookie/Child
  • Type: Reptile
  • Attribute: Vaccine
  • Field: Dragon’s Roar, Deep Savers, Nightmare Soldiers, Metal Empire, Virus Busters and Nature Spirits

You know him, you love him, he's Digimon's orange dinosaur mascot. Tai met him as Koromon the moment he arrived into the Digital World the very first time. Over the course of a long and daunting journey, the two built an unbreakable bond. Agumon isn’t really the strongest as Taichi tends to Digivolve him for his harder fights, but he still packs a punch with razor sharp hard claws and shooting fireballs. Other Agumon such as the one in the Adventures prequel movie (that makes it ambiguous whether or not it’s the same one) have jumped high into the sky, making the species surprisingly athletic. By the end of the original Adventures story, Agumon is able to hold his own against Adult level forms such as Shellmon and Kuwagamon. Even if he’s separated from Tai, he can quickly track him down by following his partner's scent., Also, as a Vaccine Digimon, while weak against Data Digimon, he’s quite effective against Virus-type Digimon. Don’t mess with this dinosaur!

  • Baby Flame: Also known as Pepper Breath in the dub, Agumon lets loose a fiery breath from his mouth. It’s fierce and powerful and surprisingly reaches far, being able to travel high into the sky.
  • Spitfire: Unleashes multiple small fireballs from his mouth. Useful for rapidfiring his blasts.
  • Baby Burner: Charges a Baby Flame in his mouth and then unleashes a much stronger blast of fire.
  • Sharp Claws: Slashes the opponent with his claws. Agumon can use this to slash rapidly or even do a fierce uppercut like a Shoryuken that he can imbue with fire.
  • Dynamite Kick: A flurry of kicks in midair should he need a foe to get off him.
Greymon

  • Stage: Champion/Adult
  • Type: Dinosaur
  • Attribute: Vaccine
  • Field: Dragon’s Roar, Deep Savers, Nightmare Soldiers, Metal Empire, Virus Busters and Nature Spirits

Agumon’s iconic champion level form. As Greymon, he becomes a full blown dinosaur that is known for its rhinoceros beetle-like shell on the top of its head giving it 3 powerful horns. It typically fights with his claws, horns and of course, deadly fire breath. As you can imagine, he turns rather large and towers over weaker Digimon, but that size and power doesn’t diminish his intelligence at all. It’s wrestled with other Adult level Digimon and usually comes out on top, defeating Shellmon and Parrotmon. It’s able to spew extremely high-temperature flames that can reduce everything to ashes. Also, despite his rather large stature, he’s surprisingly nimble and athletic too. In Our War Game he can bounce off walls to momentum himself towards other opponents and is even shown to jump several stories into the air to catch a flying Digimon from the skies. This is one Adult level Digimon you don’t want to mess with.

  • Bit Fire: Greymon can fire multiple fire balls from his mouth. It’s not quite as strong as his Mega Flame, but in exchange, he can hit multiple foes at once with multiple fire balls.
  • Great Antler: Headbutts the opponent, skewering them with its powerful horns. He can also charge forward with it as well, and let’s be real, you don’t want to be in the way of that large horn.
  • Tail Whip/Crash: With his rather large tail, Greymon can strike his opponent with his tail. The crash variant has him slam it at full force to send his opponents flying.
SkullGreymon

  • Stage: Ultimate/Perfect
  • Type: Undead
  • Attribute: Virus
  • Field: Dragon’s Roar and Nightmare Soldiers

When Taichi was the first of the Chosen Children to collect his Crest, the team was struggling hard with the Perfect level Etemon constantly bearing down on them. So Taichi's response was to try to effectively cheat out courage to invoke an evolution. And as a result, he got his Digivolution - a Dark Digivolution, as Greymon would end up evolving into SkullGreymon, a horrific skeletal beast that would go on a berserk rampage. Its sheer presence was disrupting the Dark Network, and had enough power to defeat not just an enemy Greymon, but one shot Birdramon, Kabuterimon, and Garurumon in one strike, as well as withstand their combined attacks without a scratch.

SkullGreymon has an organic missile on its back that it can fire, with enough firepower to destroy a massive Dark Tower. It doesn’t have a scrap of intelligence left to balance its battle instinct and its existence is a threat to other Digimon. Thankfully, SkullGreymon burns through its energy quickly, and will revert back to Koromon after a short enough time. As you can imagine, Taichi and Agumon have never used the form willingly again since the first accident.

While Taichi has thankfully developed more than enough to prevent a disaster like this from ever happening again, the sheer power this form brings is worth noting.

  • Ground Zero: Basically shoots an organic homing missile from his spinal cord.
  • Oblivion Bird: An upgraded version of Ground Zero that’s even more powerful and longer ranged with the added benefit of homing into his targets.
  • Curse Breath: Unleashes a purple smoke from its mouth that paralyzes opponents.
  • Skull Destroy: Launches a missile that unleashes a toxic explosion.
MetalGreymon

(Rina’s favorite)

  • Stage: Ultimate/Perfect
  • Type: Cyborg
  • Attribute: Vaccine
  • Field: Dragon’s Roar, Deep Savers, Nightmare Soldiers, Metal Empire, Virus Busters and Nature Spirits

Agumon’s true Perfect level form, awakened when Taichi finally understood what it means to have courage. Both him and MetalGreymon were rewarded well too, as he’s one powerful threat, with offensive power comparable to a single nuclear warhead, said to annihilate low-level Digimon without leaving a trace.

MetalGreymon comes equipped with a small but notable arsenal, including the Trident Arm and Giga Destroyer. The Trident Arm is a gauntlet with claws that MetalGreymon can use to slash at opponents, and can be fired outwards on a tether to hit foes at range. It’s also made of special metal called “Chrome Digizoid”, the strongest metal in existence. The Giga Destroyer are two missiles launched from his chest that he can freely adjust the destructive force of, but at their max have been able to destroy giant walls and even entire structures. It’s even implied that Giga Destroyer’s sheer power broke down the dimensional wall between the Real and Digital Worlds, creating a wormhole that once sucked in Taichi and MetalGreymon back to the normal world - though it’s possible this was a result of the destruction of the Dark Network, rather than just the Giga Destroyer’s raw power.

MetalGreymon is still a powerhouse physically though, able to wrestle with fellow Perfect Levels like DeathMeramon for a time, survive hits from Ultimate levels like VenomVamdemon, and match its fellow DigiDestined, even when they’re stronger from infection

  • Giga Destroyer: Launches organic missiles from the hatch on his chest. He never seems to run out and remember these are comparable to a nuclear warhead. Watch out!
  • Over Flame: Unleashes a powerful wave of fire either from his mouth or his Trident Arm. Even when he becomes a cyborg, he never stops breathing fire, we suppose.
  • Metal Slash: Though it does indeed use his metal claw arm, it’s actually a fiery slash with it as well.
  • Giga Storm: Sends out a high-temperature energy wave from the firing ports on his chest.
WarGreymon

(TWILT’s favorite)

  • Stage: Mega/Ultimate
  • Type: Dragon Man/Warrior
  • Attribute: Vaccine
  • Field: Dragon’s Roar, Deep Savers, Nightmare Soldiers, Metal Empire, Virus Busters and Nature Spirits

Agumon’s Mega form, awakened when Taichi was pierced with arrows of light and hope, and for a long time, his final and strongest solo form. Being the strongest of the Greymon-species forms (...for now), he’s actually more modestly human sized compared to the other species' gigantic structure. However, he more than makes up with rapid fast speeds, extreme power and the ability to fly. Very few have managed to survive fighting against this Ultimate level Digimon.

It is equipped with the Brave Shield, which can block most attacks, the Dramon Killers, sharp claws that display additional power against draconic species, and armor forged of the super-metal known as Chrome Digizoid. His main attacks include the Great Tornado, which involves him spinning at high speed to become a mini tornado, using his claws to become a makeshift Digimon spear that can pierce through enemies WarGreymon previously had much more trouble harming, and the signature Gaia Force, a giant ball of energy formed from energy in the atmosphere and concentrated in one spot, which he throws down at his enemies for a devastating blast.

  • Shield Rocket: He can also just fire the Dramon Destroyers as a projectile without needing to get in close.
  • Brave Shield: WarGreymon can use the shield on his back to block most attacks. Though it’s not invincible, it’s very durable and has let him block all sorts of attacks.
  • Ultra Tornado: WarGreymon can fire a pair of fireballs from his gauntlets. No, we don’t know why it’s called that.
  • Brave Tornado: Unites his Dramon Killers together over its head, and pierces the opponent by charging at them while rapidly spinning. Or creates a flaming tornado.
  • War Driver: Charges power into his Dramon Killers and then slashes with flaming claws.

Ordinarily he’s only slightly larger than a human and Taichi can fit on his back, but in the 2020 reboot, he’s practically a kaiju with Taichi barely standing out on his shoulder. We’ll be focusing on the more modest size since that’s the canon version.

BlitzGreymon (Reboot)

  • Stage: Mega/Ultimate
  • Type: Cyborg
  • Attribute: Virus
  • Field: Metal Empire

An alternate Mega form MetalGreymon after coming into contact with a large pillar of energy. Unlike the fire based nature of his pre-evolutions, BlitzGreymon is instead based around electricity. It is directly stated to be a sub species of WarGreymon and is one half of Omegamon Alter S.

In the 2020 Reboot, BlitzGreymon is said to have adapted to the environment they were in, which was near a pillar that was able to “pierce the heavens and distort space”. Despite only appearing in one episode, BlitzGreymon was shown to be able to hold off multiple Digimon at once, proving that he is quite powerful.

  • Plasma Stake: Reinforces his heavyweight grappling with electricity, striking with the Plasma Stakes on both arms, which send electric current flowing into even the sturdiest of structures and destroying them from within.
  • Thunder Venier: Rotates the Thunder Verniers on his back to face forward, from which he fires electricity, or uses them while faced backwards to propel himself forward.
  • Elec Guard: Releases plasma particles into his surroundings and uses them to erect a barrier around him.

Due to this form being from the reboot and not in canon, it will not play a significant role in the verdict (though we will address this later).

Agumon (Bond of Bravery)

(Why are you named Bond of Bravery if you're based around the Crest of Courage?)

  • Stage: Mega/Ultimate (Mega+/Ultra/Super Ultimate in different media)
  • Type: Unknown
  • Attribute: Unknown
  • Field: Deep Savers, Nature Spirits, Nightmare Soldiers and Virus Busters

Also known as Yuki no Kizuna, the final Digivolution, born from the ultimate bond between Taichi and Agumon during their final battle as Chosen Children against Menoa Bellucci and Eosmon. This form is proof of the deep trust Taichi and Agumon have for each other, the courage of Taichi in particular turning into hot flames around his body. For context, Omegamon is already considered ten times stronger than Wargreymon and MetalGarurumon, but Agumon (Bond of Bravery) is even stronger than that (even if hard to quantify). He’s incredibly powerful, strong enough to completely overpower Eosmon's Mega level form alongside Gabumon (Bond of Friendship), with Eosmon being capable of effortlessly defeating Omegamon, and blocking all his attacks just moments earlier. It’s one of the last Digivolutions Taichi and Agumon used, but it sure is one hell of a powerful one.

  • Striking Salamander Slash/Strash Salamander: Impales the opponent with the spear on his tail by taking his tail off and using it as a polearm.
  • Gaia Brave: Converts the flames of courage contained within him into an ultra-high temperature energy shot and then releases it. It’s a very powerful fireball if the interpretation in Time Strangers is anything to go by.

Cyclomon

  • Stage: Champion/Adult
  • Type: Dragon Man
  • Attribute: Virus
  • Field: Nature Spirits

While Tai ordinarily only uses Agumon and his various forms in combat, in Digimon Adventure 02: D-1 Tamers (a real deep cut, we know), he actually does control two other Digimons in the D-1 tournament (and this is literally the only time Tai has used more than one Digimon in canon, but hey good to be comprehensive). This Adult level Digimon isn’t anything too special, but it does have a fierce rivalry with Leomon, searching for revenge against him.

  • Hyper Heat: Uses a really hot temperature that can “melt through anything” supposedly.
  • Strength Arm: Also known as “Arm Bomber” in the dub, it’s a powerful strike with his huge arm.

Triceramon

  • Stage: Ultimate/Perfect
  • Type: Ceratopsian/Dinosaur
  • Attribute: Data
  • Field: Nature Spirits

Like Cyclomon, Tai has only used this Digimon once in canon and it was in the Wonderswan games, but he’s still a formidable foe. It has incredibly tough skin among its class and those horns are nothing to scoff at either. Though actually normally a peaceful Digimon, it relies on sluggish but powerful movements that can destroy even the toughest sturdy-bodied Mineral-species Digimon.

  • Tri-Horn Attack: He’ll charge into his foes with the horns and you can imagine how much it hurts. In the V-Tamer 01 game, he actually shoots beams from his horns!
  • Mega Dash: Also known as Body Blow, he’ll tackle his enemies with great force.
  • Golden Tri-Horn Attack: Basically the same thing, but this time amped with electricity.
  • Volcanic Strike: Though Agumon likely already has it covered, Triceramon can also shoot fireballs from his mouth as well.

Feats

Red

Overall

  • Became the Pokémon Champion of Kanto
  • Stopped Team Rocket’s evil ambitions several times
  • Defeated every Kanto Gym Leader, Giovanni, the Elite 4, Blue, and maybe Gold
  • Calmed the spirit of Marowak in Pokémon Tower and saved Mr Fuji
  • Captured all 151 original Pokémon and completed the Pokédex
  • With the National Dex in FireRed/LeafGreen, 386 Pokémon from Johto and Hoenn as well
  • Defeated and captured the Genetic Pokémon, Mewtwo
  • Genuinely treats his Pokémon like caring family and partners
  • Eventually got off that dang freezing hailing mountain and returned to society
  • Participated in the Champions Tournament in the Unova Pokémon World Tournament alongside other region champions
  • Leads the Battle Tree in Alola alongside Blue, helping future trainers become stronger
  • Is literally immortal franchise-wise due to The Pokémon Company never leaving Generation 1 alone (Happy 30th anniversary!)

Power

  • Charizard’s Fire Blast KOed Blastoise despite the type disadvantage
  • Several of Red’s Pokemon can learn Strength and push boulders

Speed

  • Pikachu is faster than most Pokémon and is usually able to move first thanks to Quick Attack

Durability

  • Survived Charizard falling on top of him

Taichi & Agumon

Overall

  • Saved the Human and Digital World many times over (with the help of their friends)
  • Defeated Etemon, Vamdemon (twice), the Dark Masters, Apocalymon, Diaboromon (also twice), and Ordinemon
  • Protected his sister and helped her realize her role as a Chosen Child too
  • Helped make BlackWarGreymon realize the error of his ways
  • Made peace with Yamato and helped form one half of Omegamon with him
  • Defeated the rogue Chosen Child Menoa alongside Yamato and Gabumon
  • Passed on the goggle boy legacy to Daisuke
  • Reunited with Agumon after the events of Last Evolution Kizuna
  • Became diplomats for the Human and Digital World
  • Survived the mess of the story that is Ryo Akiyama
  • Are literally immortal franchise-wise due to Toei never leaving Digimon Adventure alone

Power

Tai

Agumon

Greymon

SkullGreymon

MetalGreymon

WarGreymon

Speed

Tai

Agumon

Greymon

MetalGreymon

WarGreymon

  • Blitzes Infermon as seen above
  • Brave Tornado has WarGreymon spin so fast he basically becomes a tornado

Durability

Tai

Agumon

Greymon

SkullGreymon

MetalGreymon

WarGreymon

Scaling

Red

Red’s considered one of the strongest trainers in the Pokémon series. He overcame his Kanto journey, defeating and catching them all, travelled to Johto and fought trainers and has over a decade worth of experience as of Sun and Moon. Even trainers that have caught and are as strong as the Pokémon gods, Red has contended with and even defeated. He scales to every notable feat in Pokémon (barring true form Arceus since no one really scales to them).

Kanto Trainers / Pokémon

One of the most self-explanatory scaling explanations. Red has caught every Kanto Pokémon and beaten every trainer in Kanto to become the region’s champion in his own game. Red easily scales above the following classic Pokémon feats.

Other Region Pokémon (Non-Kanto)

Red has travelled to other regions like Johto, Unova and Alola and is still considered above many of the trainers there (even amongst the champions in the Pokémon World Tournaments which are above gym leaders and elite 4 members). He definitely should scale above these following feats.

Legendary Pokémon and Trainers

Red has fought and caught the Legendary Pokémon in his own home region like the birds and Mewtwo. Not only that, he’s fought other trainers like Gold, Rosa/Nate and Elio/Selene who have caught the legendaries in their regions as well. This isn’t the limit of his scaling either (which we’ll explain right after this section), so the following feats are fine to scale.

Notable Trainers

Legendary Pokémon

The Creation Trio (aw shit here we go again)

Yeah yeah, we’ve been through this dance before but to Red’s credit, if there’s any trainer that deserves to scale to Dialga, Palkia and Giratina’s feats, it’s Red. He’s considered one of the strongest trainers in the Pokémon world, which naturally makes him comparable to other trainers who have fought and even defeated them.

Though for more direct scaling methods, Red has plenty. He is straight up the super boss/final challenge for Gold at the end of Heart Gold/Soul Silver. This is important as Gold straight up has a creation trio member on his team after the Arceus event in that game (which can only happen in those games) and has an Arceus avatar in general.

Also in the Pokémon World Tournament in Black & White 2, he’s among the Champions Tournament participants which includes Cynthia. This is important as Cynthia is the final champion of the Sinnoh games, where Dawn or Lucas have fought her before, after either of them defeated creation trio members or even caught them to add to their team.

Finally, years later, he fought Selene and Elio after the events of Rainbow Rocket in Ultra Sun/Moon. Rainbow Rocket has the protagonists of the game fight various evil team members from previous generations, which includes Cyrus who has either Palkia or Dialga on his team and Elio/Selene defeated him. Red’s Pokémon are also at a higher level than Cyrus’.

With all that, Red’s one of the top dogs in the Pokémon world and absolutely scales to the Creation Trio’s cosmic feats.

  • Depending on which version you play, Palkia/Dialga distorts space/time respectively (Universal at least)
  • Assuming Palkia/Dialga are indeed affecting the universe as whole, it’d be pretty fast though the whole scope is unclear. We recommend using this as a high end only rather than a definitive feat. (104.8 Quadrillions time FTL) (Debatable)
  • Cyrus was in awe at not only a galaxy, but a whole universe was going to be made, which was his intention. Palkia and Dialga were distorting time/space seconds beforehand too. The galaxy is definitely meant to be literal.

Taichi and Agumon

While the duo of Courage are only one-eighths of Digimon Adventure's Chosen Children, Taichi and Agumon are still very capable of keeping up with many of the combatants throughout the series, if not outright surpassing all of them thanks to Agumon -Bond of Bravery-.

Chosen Children

Taichi has been there since the beginning of Adventure and is considered the leader among his friends. More proof is this is Agumon eventually gaining his Bond of Bravery form, putting him above even Omegamon as he defeats Menoa where the fusion previously struggled. There isn’t really a question that Taichi and Agumon scale to their fellow peers.

  • Yamato and Gabumon
  • Hikari and Tailmon
  • Takeru and Patamon
  • Koshiro and Tentomon
  • Sora and Piyomon
  • Jou and Gomamon
  • Mimi and Palmon
  • Daisuke and V-Mon
  • Iori and Armadimon
  • Miyako and Hawkmon
  • Ken and Wormmon
  • Meiko and Meicoomon
  • Jogress Digimon
  • Multiple (feats that involve multiple of the Chosen Children basically)

Champion/Adult Levels

Taichi and Agumon have defeated plenty of Adult level Digimon, even early in their careers. Agumon can of course evolve into Greymon and can handle plenty on his own.

  • Meramon:
  • Seadramon:
  • Yukidarumon:
  • Kuwagamon:
  • Flew from the continents in the sky to the Human World
  • Devimon:
  • Parrotmon:

Ultimate/Perfect Levels

Later on in the series, Taichi would help Agumon evolve into MetalGreymon, another Perfect level form too and they and the other Chosen Children have defeated plenty of Digimon in that class range too in Adventures.

  • Etemon:
  • Vademon:
  • Vamdemon:
  • Megadramon:
  • Chimeramon:

Mega/Ultimate Levels

Finally, the strongest Digimon in Adventures themselves. Taichi and Agumon have defeated or at least helped with many of the Digimon listed here. WarGreymon is considered at least on par with them and while he can’t rely on Omegamon today, he doesn’t need to since Bond of Bravery Agumon is even stronger than that. Taichi and Agumon definitely scale to the strongest Digimon in the Adventure series, being among some of the strongest themselves.

  • BelialVamdemon:
  • The Four Dark Masters:
  • Apocalymon:
  • The black hole could cause distortions and increase in size due to energy, likely making it a real black hole
  • BlackWarGreymon:
  • Alphamon:
  • (This version of Alphamon is not the same as others in other Digimon media/continuites, so can’t be used to scale to the Royal Knights as a whole, just this continuity). (See Before The Verdict)
  • Ordinemon:
  • ZeedMillenniummon (oh brother)

Weaknesses

Red

Red’s one of the strongest trainers in Pokémon, but he is not invincible. Even if his wins far outnumber them, he has taken his fair share of losses. Red himself is not a fighter and should all six of his Pokémon partners fall in battle, he’ll be left wide open (or he’ll be forced to run back to the nearest Pokémon Center if his opponent isn’t that blood thirsty I guess). And even though he has a lot of items, they aren’t infinite and can run out eventually, so it is possible to lose in a battle of attrition (even if it would take a long while should Red get stubborn). 

Canonically speaking, Pokémon are fatally vulnerable to having their life force siphoned out of them if it’s all removed, since this was the fuel necessary for the Ultimate Weapon’s activation. If they suffer especially severe or egregious injuries that render a Pokémon unable to walk or see, like Arven’s Mabostiff, then not even Potions or Pokémon Centers can heal them. In fact, when faced with enough overwhelming power, then protective moves such as Detect, Protect, and even full-on Type immunities can be bypassed. Additionally, Trainers themselves may be resilient, but targeting them with sleep-inducing moves like Sleep Powder can knock a Trainer unconscious.

Poké Balls aren’t entirely true safe havens or all-powerful seals. Poké Balls have a rather consistent history of being tech that’s easily hackable if targeted. They’ve been hacked and remotely locked by Turo or Sada’s Time Machine, had the Ball and the Pokémon within controlled by a computer virus, and they’ve had their functions fully disrupted by Ghetsis’s cane so the Trainer can’t capture a Pokémon. In fact, this state can even disallow a Trainer from using any items on their Pokémon inside the Poké Balls. 

One time, Stellar Terapagos was emitting so much energy that it could even outright ignore a recall into a Master Ball and break it. A broken Poké Ball, in this instance, would allow the Pokémon to be able to be recaptured by a different Trainer. Or, with the right tech like a Snag Machine, Pokémon can simply be forcibly stolen away from their Trainer.

His key Pokémon also have various specific weaknesses:

  • Pikachu is a fragile glass cannon where he must use his speed to avoid deadly hits. If he’s not careful, one Earthquake will do him in good.
  • Snorlax is slow no matter how you slice it, and while he has a lot of health, he is lacking in physical durability. A fighting type could spell disaster for him.
  • Lapras is lacking in mobility and while he can still deal good damage, Lapras doesn’t excel at raw power either. A fighting, rock, electric or grass type will be super effective.
  • Espeon is lacking in physical bulk and has a somewhat linear kit. Bugs, Darkness and Ghosts are effective on this psychic.
  • Blastoise isn’t the fastest starter and can be overwhelmed by grass and electric moves. Also prefers playing defensively and at a distance instead of rushing in.
  • Venusaur is a jack of all trades but is a master of none. He also hates dealing with flying, psychic, ice and fire type attacks.
  • Charizard is more frail than his starter friends and often uses his flight/speed to avoid big hits rather than tanking any. He also doesn’t like water, electricity and is especially weak to rocks (especially if they’re of the stealth variety).

Taichi and Agumon

Taichi and Agumon may be a powerful duo, but they are not without flaws. Their strength in battle is on a constant time limit due to Agumon’s stamina, which often runs out in minutes at worst. Agumon himself needs food to even be able to fight and should he ever get too tired, he won’t be able to evolve at all midcombat. Taichi can circumvent this to a degree by boosting Agumon’s stamina back up, but their inability to maintain powerful forms like WarGreymon for very long can prove their downfall in a drawn out battle. Heck, taking too much damage or running out of energy while in his stronger forms will turn Agumon all the way back to his baby form Koromon, which could be a death sentence as it’s his weakest form (though it should be noted Greymon can at least fight for several hours against a tough opponent before running out).

Agumon also relies on Taichi’s Digivice to function for him to evolve, which can prove dangerous if it were to be damaged or destroyed. In fact, Taichi’s Digivice cracking in Kizuna is how Omegamon was forcefully transformed back to Koromon again.

Cosmology

Pokémon Games/Red

Within Pokémon, there are many ways to describe how vast its multiverse is, but we’ll keep it as succinct and digestible as we can.

First up, there exists a huge amount of parallel worlds. The infamous cartridge theory, where each game sold is a universe within the multiverse, has many backings. But perhaps the strongest is Entralink - a mysterious place in the center of Unova where a player can connect to someone else’s game world, which is just their mainland Unova region. By entering it, the player is transformed to look like an NPC, and the world is grayscale. The game makes many references to this being not just another world, but someone else’s world - another player's world and game copy. Combined with additional evidence, such as trading between game copiesbeing described as traveling across space and time, this would support the idea each game copy of Pokémon exist as a universe - leading to a staggering amount of over 350 million parallel universes. Even recently, with the introduction of classic Red in Masters, it’s confirmed he came from a parallel universe.

Next, each of these universes can diverge into many parallel timelines. Scientists in-universe well informed on the mechanics of time travel have stated any interaction occurring in one timeline can be happening in another unconnected timeline, and not a part of any continuous past or future, due to the complexities and paths space time can take being innumerable. The idea of diverging timelines isn’t a foreign concept to Pokémon, as Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire introduce the idea of another world where Hoenn is the same, but Mega Evolution is an unknown, and the Ultimate Weapon fired over 3000 years ago was never built. All these and more lean towards the idea of Pokemon operating under many worlds interpretation, where each choice or action leads to another timeline stemming from an original point. Space and time are stated to be infinite from Masuda himself.

Finally, we have Ultra Space, the extra dimensional realm that connects to countless other worlds through Ultra Wormholes. While typically seen in reference to the worlds Ultra Beasts inhabit, Ultra Space extends far greater. The most obvious example being Team Rainbow Rocket, in which Ultra Wormholes are used to drag in villains from explicitly alternate worlds and timelines in whichthe villains actually won. This is supported by best girl Anabel appearing in Alola through an Ultra Wormhole, and recalling being in charge of a tower - clearly referencing her role in the Battle Tower in Emerald and more clear evidence such as an Ultra Wormhole appearing in Sword/Shield. This leads to Ultra Space being connected to and encompassing all worlds and timelines within the Pokémon multiverse.

Now recently there has been some debate whether or not Ultra Space would qualify for 5D or higher dimensional space. The arguments are as follows as it’s not really a clear cut answer for either or.

  • For: In order for it to contain infinite timelines and universes (supported by the game itself), Ultra Space's dimension would have to be larger and encompass all of them, thus making it a bulk space for higher dimensions. We know Pokémon consistently operates on many world interpretations and even if it only has wormholes leading to the universes, being able to contain an infinite amount would possibly still qualify. Even if it's a dimension that works as a transit space, you can argue that even so, that transit space has to exist between several adjoining dimensions. If you use Ultra Space to travel from A to B to C, B is still between A and C.
  • Against: While Ultra Space is a dimension, that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be so huge to contain the Pokémon cosmology. It moreso has paths or wormholes to every universe rather than just being able to contain them all outright. It mainly works as a transit space rather than a whole huge higher dimension which is supported by how it works the Ultra Sun/Moon mini game.

With reasonable arguments for either, we recommend only using Ultra Space 5D as a high end to combat other similar arguments rather than the main argument straight up. There is merit, but it is safer to just leave the creation trio at multiversal, likely infinite.

Why Red Scales

Red has multiple avenues to scale to the Creation Trio just through who he’s fought, as highlighted a bit above, but this will simply cover only the most direct ways. First is his battle with Gold, where he’s the ultimate superboss in HeartGold & SoulSilver and Gold’s final challenge, having the highest level in the game and being the toughest enemy. Gold has an Arceus avatar and even a Creation Trio member of his choice from the Arceus event, which directly puts him on the level of the Creation Trio.

Next is Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon, where Red is fought after Selene and Elio defeat Team Rainbow Rocket, one of its members being Cyrus, who has Dialga or Palkia depending on the game version. Red has a higher level than Cyrus in the game as well, showing he’s meant to be a greater challenge as well.

Finally, while Pokémon Masters is not being included in terms of scaling, character details are still fine and meant to be as faithful to the games as possible, and it’s highlighted that Red is the strongest trainer in history. This puts him above not just who we’ve mentioned above, but other definitive Creation Trio tier trainers like Cynthia, who fought Lucas and Dawn right after they battled Dialga / Palkia / Giratina in Diamond, Pearl, & Platinum. As it stands, Red’s position in the hierarchy of Pokemon is nearly unchallenged, and he stands among the top of its trainers.

Note: Should be noted there is technically a place beyond both space and time that would qualify as 5-6D (depending how you feel about Ultra Space) that True Form Arceus resides in. While Gold does have an Arceus avatar, that does NOT mean him or Red scale to True Form Arceus overall. What Gold has is just that, an avatar or a piece of him rather than the full true form god. We can’t really quantify how strong this avatar is aside from vaguely upscaling the legendary creation trio (which hey, is still pretty good).

Digimon Adventures/Tai

Within Digimon, there are two primary settings where the story takes place; one is the Real World, which is meant to be the same as our own. The other is the Digital World, parallel to the Real World, where data and programs have taken physical form, even being compared to atoms and molecules. Everything in the Digital World is made up of the data that runs through the computer networks in the Real World, founded on the power to materialize emotions itself. Time passes much differently in it, where a single day is merely minutes in the Real World, showing it has its own unique timestream. Its primary planet is as big as Earth itself, but it clearly contains its own sun and night sky, meaning it is more than likely a parallel universe.

The Digital World, however, is only one of the many worlds that exist parallel with the Real World. Of the known ones are Apocalymon’s endless darkness, Dagomon’s ocean world, etc., but there exist up to 3.6 million parallel worlds outside of just the Digital and Real Worlds, with their existence even confirmed to be the case by official creator statements. All of these worlds have emerged in a multi-layered way, quite similar yet different to one another side-by-side. They stem from the primordial world known as the Quantum Sea, being mere shadows of the ‘true world’, and the Quantum Sea’s existence is tied to all of the parallel worlds that came from it.

Why Taichi Scales

By the end of the original Adventures, Taichi, WarGreymon, and the rest of the DigiDestined are stronger than the Four Dark Masters, Digimon strong enough to reshape the entirety of the Digital World into Spiral Mountain. Even Piemon, the strongest of the four, had to resort to transmutation to defeat Tai and Yamato, as he could not beat them in a straight fight. He would immediately then battle Apocalymon and heavily wound him, and his Digivice, combined with the others, was able to hold back his self-destruct that would’ve destroyed both the Real and Digital Worlds.

Taichi himself has only gotten stronger since then. In Adventures 02, WarGreymon was a match for BlackWarGreymon on equal footing, an Ultimate level who stomped the new DigiDestined, including Ken Ichijouji, who helped defeat Millenniumon alongside Ryo Akiyama. Diaboromon was a threat even greater than Apocalymon, requiring the might of Omegamon to defeat him, a Digimon 10 times stronger than either WarGreymon or MetalGarurumon. And yet, when Omegamon wasn’t enough to defeat Menona and her Ultimate Eosmon, Bond of Bravery Agumon was able to push back against the Digimon and even break its barrier in a combined strike with Bond of Courage Gabumon, showing that Tai and Agumon at their best are the strongest characters in the Adventures continuity.

Digimon Cosmology Overall

So this section mainly exists to give a pretty quick rundown of the Digimon cosmology as a whole and how it generally works. While it likely won’t have too much of an effect on the verdict as Tai does NOT scale to everything here as a whole (especially not to the extent some later anime and especially game protagonists do), we believe this is probably a good time to actually go over it. Note, things such as higher dimensions or possible dimensional tiering for the overall cosmology will not be gone over in this blog as it just really isn’t remotely relevant to the character used in this blog. We will be using the 25th Anniversary Book as the basis here as that had an entire section going over various parts of the overall cosmology. And to keep things simple, we will just go over things in terms.

  • Net Ocean: A metaphorical sea of data, aka the “big data”. This collection of data separates the Layers physically and conceptually, keeping them isolated from each other and protecting them from any drastic changes due to the events of other layers.
  • Homeostasis: While not really mentioned in the Anniversary Book, in Digimon Story: Time Stranger, the true role of Homeostasis was revealed. It is confirmed that Homeostasis is the supreme being of the Digimon franchise and is responsible for the creation of the Digital World as we know it (perhaps the Human World and other dimensions like the World of Eaters as well, but those have less direct confirmation). Currently, not too much is known about Homeostasis aside from them having a strong aversion to directly interfering with the world and wanting it to be self-sufficient.

Before the Verdicts

Red

Giratina’s Space-Time Rift in Legends: Arceus

In Pokémon Legends Arceus, a key story point is there’s a space-time rift that appears at the beginning of the game that transports the player from the future to the past. The space-time rift is sustained by Giratina, about to destroy space and time in anger of Arceus trapping them in the distortion realm. This has been talked about in past blogs and is a rather controversial one as it’s been argued to destroy the entire Pokémon multiverse, thus making it a multiversal+ feat. Does it hold up though? Well, it’s…complicated.

First of all, Cogita says innumerable universes are being affected, but in the Japanese, it says “several” instead. Obviously meaning more than one, but not quite an infinite number. Of course, there’s more context to the feat. The reason why Giratina made the rift at all was to draw Arceus out of hiding and enrage Palkia and Dialga. That’s because all of time and space were being thrown out of balance.

Now it’s important to note that in context, Cogita says time and space make a universe, which could be singular in context. That being said, it is confirmed that multiple universes are being affected. To add support to this, the player (Akari / Rei) fell from the rift too and Hisui is a whole new world to them. Not only that, Ingo from Black & White fell from the rift too from the future and it’s clearly the same one though he is suffering from amnesia (and in Legends: Z-A, it’s confirmed he made it back to his timeline eventually). It’s unclear if Ingo and the player came from the same timeline, but it’s unlikely as the player entered a world where Pokémon is foreign to them (though it is possible it’s just talking about entering a past timeline they’re unfamiliar with).

With this information, it makes it clear that the rift was not only affecting multiple universes, but future timelines as well, which is important since Pokémon’s game cosmology clearly operates on MWI. If Giratina’s rift was affecting all of that, it’s likely multiversal again, which could make sense since Dialga (the controller of time) was affected and Giratina’s goal to draw out Arceus. All that said though, it is hard to ignore Corgita’s saying time and space make a (singular) universe, so it’s not quite as iron clad even if it’s confirmed Giratina was affecting multiple (plural).

All in all, while it’s possible to argue it being stronger, due to its vague nature, it’s safest to put it a degree of low multi as it’s indeed confirmed to overlap several dimensions, but somewhat hard to confirm if it’s affecting the multiverse as a whole. We decided to not focus on this feat too much, but rather the other creation trio feats such as Palkia sustaining Ultra Space and Dialga controlling the flow of time.

In case you wanted to put a number to it, we do know it’s connected to Dialga and Palkia’s world (and likely Giratina’s as well), as well as the main Hisui universe and the player’s/Ingo’s timelines, so this would be bare minimum be about 6x times universal if you don’t buy the multiversal ends.

More Than One Creation Trio?

A heated debate about Pokémon in vs debates is whether or not there’s more than one Dialga, Palkia and Giratina in the Pokémon multiverse. If you think there’s only one, arguing that the creation trio can scale to the infinite multiverse would become a lot easier since they’d have to be responsible for the whole thing, but if there’s more than one…it becomes a lot more complicated.

The main thing that would support a singular creation trio is perhaps simply the lore itself. Three beings the original one (referring to Arceus of course) did make seems to imply Arceus really just made one trio before going into his own realm. It never implies Arceus had to make more than one set and likely just refers to a singular trio. Also, there was legit nothing before Arceus appeared and made them, so a singular trio would make sense if the multiverse was made from nothing. Also, the games themselves usually always have only one trio available at a time and other media usually depict only one set. For other supplemental evidence, Giratina’s rift in Legends Arceus (explained above) was affecting several dimensions but only one set of creation trio appear and Palkia is confirmed to make several universes (plural) by themself but they could also just refer to the macrocosm of a single Pokémon universe that contain several of them.

That being said, Pokémon isn’t exactly consistent with its lore over the course of 30 years, so of course there’s some oddities with more than one set. There are two main examples worth going through.

The first is the Heart Gold/Soul Silver event. Basically, with an Arceus on your team, Gold/Kotone can bring them to the Sinjoh ruins to give birth to a level 1 Creation Trio member of their choosing (and this event can only happen in these games). Obviously, the universe the player is in already exists, so Arceus giving life to a new member hypothetically could only make sense if there was more than one trio sustaining the universe somewhere else. However, this event has context, the main one being Arceus simply wanted to show a glimpse of its true power, the ability to make life out of nothing. Arceus only makes one member rather than a whole trio and it’s not like a whole brand universe is confirmed to be created once they’re done. So this argument isn’t the best to confirm that more than one trio exists and is more so about Arceus “flexing” their power so to speak.

The second is in the Ultra Sun/Moon games. Basically, in the events of Rainbow Rocket, Cyrus has achieved his goals and caught Dialga/Palkia (depending on the version you play) in an alternative future. However, later on, you’re able to catch the same member in Ultra Space mini-game, thus leading you to believe there’s more than one. However, this is not as ironclad as you’d think. The main one being Cyrus himself is from an alternative future, thus proving Ultra Space can connect to alternative timelines and the CT member you can catch in Ultra Space could simply be the member from an earlier point in time before Cyrus catches them. Another main thing to note is that you can only catch one creation trio member in said Ultra Space. So surely, if there were indeed multiple members, you can catch more than one, right? It’s not a perfect argument, but it does show this “evidence” of more than one is not as foolproof as some might think.

Regardless if you think there’s more than one or not though, we’ve decided not to focus on this aspect of the debate too much. A big reason because even though it becomes more complicated if there’s more than one…arguing multiversal creation trio is definitely still very valid as explained in cosmology/scaling.

What is Darkrai’s Hyperspace Lumiose?

More recently in the Legends games, Pokémon Legends: Z-A released the Mega Dimension DLC that was centered around an interdimensional anomaly causing distortions to appear around Lumiose City. More specifically, it’s made clear at the end of the storyline that Darkrai was capable of generating a dimension called “Hyperspace Lumiose”. With a premise and name like that, it has made the rounds in powerscaling circles about what this might imply for Darkrai’s power or the wider cosmology. So, let’s answer the first question: What exactly did Darkrai do?

Throughout the DLC’s main story, Quasartico, Inc. and your fellow Team MZ members are constantly researching and trying to figure out what the spatial distortions are, what the dimension is, and how it all works, leading to tons of in-universe speculation. But, the final answer is that Darkrai was present on top of Prism Tower when Ange was active and overflowing with Mega Power in the final act of the main game. This exposed it to and overwhelmed it with way too much Mega Power, making Darkrai’s nightmare generation powers to go haywire from the amplification. This caused it to tap into tons of minds, humans and Pokémon alike, blending together a “city’s worth of dreams”, and generating it as a pocket space (as in, actualizing subconscious thoughts, desires, memories, and literal dreams). This is why Hyperspace Lumiose reflects their thoughts. Effectively, it’s a collective nightmare dimension. Darkrai is even able to shunt you to the dimension in your dreams and speak to you from within it while your character is asleep.

However, this is still a tangible dimension, given Hoopa’s dimensional travel rings can open portals to it and its constant expansion bleeds into the real world and threatens to swallow up and merge with the actual Lumiose City, with characters being more vulnerable to its subconscious influence by knowing about it and how it works at all. Upon defeating Rogue Mega Darkrai, the dimension lingers, but will disappear over time, given that Darkrai was the one actively sustaining it. While, yes, it is constantly described as a collection of subconscious thoughts, it isn’t tied to the cosmology the same way a Jungian collective unconscious would be (given it’s a generated pocket dimension that can disappear after it’s no longer sustained). In fact, the Pokémon and previously deceased humans present natively in the realm are all actualized by subconscious desires, and these entities are capable of dematerializing. So, they’re not beings from alternate realities either. While you can catch and keep the Pokémon you catch within the dream realm in the real world, there is canonical precedent for this being possible via the Pokémon Dream World and Pokémon Dream Radar functions in Generation V.

Now, it being called “Hyperspace” Lumiose generally gets powerscaler eyes going wide due to hyperspace being conflated with higher dimensionality. But, this is actually only a naming convention present in the English localization. In the original Japanese script, the dimension is just called 異次元ミアレ (Otherdimensional Lumiose). This is actually something that’s consistent with Hoopa’s localizations, fitting given its role in the DLC. Hoopa’s move names, Hyperspace Hole and Hyperspace Fury, contain terms also only present in the English script. The original Japanese names translate to いじげんホール (Interdimensional Hole) and いじげんラッシュ (Interdimensional Rush) respectively.

As for the actual size of Hyperspace Lumiose, which is the real question to determine how powerful this would make Darkrai, we know that it’s made up of “a city’s worth of dreams”. Characters even shoot down the idea that this is made up of “everyone’s dreams”, as otherwise the dimension’s subconscious basis would render it far more chaotic than it already is. The only statement that would otherwise contradict this is Korrina saying it could “swallow up our whole reality”, but as soon as she gets a cold reception from even hypothetically suggesting this, she apologizes since it was just her making a joke. Even if you dismiss the prior statements, we do see Darkrai’s power create a shockwave from the main distortion over Prism Tower, which only sends an ethereal veil over Lumiose City and nothing further. This is also supported by the fact that its presence only threatens to swallow up Lumiose City over time. Even if you wanted to argue it contains starry skies, this would also be untrue. Any sparkles seen in screenshots are, in actuality, just falling particle effects when seen in gameplay footage. Therefore, given that this was Darkrai amplified with tons of Mega Power until it became a Rogue Mega Evolution, Hyperspace Lumiose would only support the notion that Mega Darkrai can sustain a nightmare dimension the size of a city or scale to the Legendary Pokémon that the dimension actualizes.

Taichi

Multiversal Digimon Adventures

(TWILTY just wanted an Uma Musume reference)

As you may have noticed, there were a few feats listed in Taichi’s scaling section to be potentially multiversal - are they valid? The answer is… Probably not. This section will be detailing the full context of the feats and potential issues with them for the sake of comprehension.

Dagomon’s fog

In episode 13 of Adventures 02, we encounter Dagomon, a being who resides in the Dark Ocean, a parallel world in conjunction with the Real and Digital World, connected to numerous other worlds in the cosmology. Dagomon’s fog is stated in a post episode teaser of episode 12 to be a darkness that will “swallow everything”…

And that’s it. No elaboration on what ‘everything’ means (as in whether it means just the Real World or the full cosmology, the information in the clips given looks it could just be the former), no actual time-frame for how long it would take for it to swallow ‘everything’, in general a decent amount of unknowns to reliably put this at multiversal.

BlackWarGreymon’s distortions

In short, BlackWarGreymon was passively causing distortions as he walked through the Digital World, and given enough time, the distortions would have weakened the boundary between not just the Real World and Digital World, but all possible worlds, and merging them into one world of darkness. The main thing to obviously address is that BWG’s distortions aren’t necessarily tied to AP, or at least have no proof as such - they can easily just be a spatial distorting ability. We also have no concrete timeframe on how long this would occur, making it possibly an overtime feat. But most importantly is the discussion of the Holy Stones.

In short, the Holy Stones are large rock formations scattered throughout the Digital World, so durable that not even other Ultimate level Digimon can break it. Their duty is to regulate balance in the boundaries between the Real and Digital Worlds, and we have an explicit statement after BlackWarGreymon destroys one of these stones that the boundary between the worlds is weakening. This presents the big issue in that the distortions that could merge all worlds can not be proven to solely be from BWG - if destroying the Holy Stones also weaken the boundaries, then those are likely contributing alongside BWG’s own distortions, and thus it would be hardly reliable to scale him to such high levels of destructive power.

Millenniummon splitting the time axis

Probably the best argument for this, and the most clear-cut; Millenniummon’s birth tore the world in two, splitting the time axis and creating a new world. It’s worth noting it was the time-axis specifically - the cosmology of Adventures, even with its vast size, are all part of one timeline, and if Millenniummon is creating a new timeline, that would also be containing those many universes. However, there are times where the dialogue references it as just another world / universe, making it questionable if it’s a timeline containing all those universes or just… another parallel universe, and thus just a universal feat (the specific wording of a time slip in the digital world specifically could imply this too). It’s debatable at least though, and if one were to argue multiversal for the Adventures continuity, this is the best way to go.

Zeed Millenniummon destroying all worlds

A rather infamous one is Zeed Millenniumon’s reference book entry stating he is a king of evil that’s still trying to destroy all eras and worlds, which hypothetically means multiversal levels of power…but that’s the thing, it’s hypothetical. The entry says he’s still TRYING to destroy all worlds, not that he could. There’s no clear indication he could just blow everything up with one go and the entry would still be correct if he did it one at a time. A damning part of the reference book in general is if he was released from his spell, he will rain “unfathomable destruction upon the Digital World,” which is a singular universe in Adventures, not a multiverse. Overall, just not a strong feat if we can even call it one.

Infected Digimon destroying the Quantum Sea

We’re told in the third part of Digimon Adventures: Tri that the Infected Digimon are causing the continuity of the Quantum Sea to be disrupted, and as a result, it will end up being destroyed, and lead to the destruction of all other worlds as a result. Simple and clear is that we don’t really know how “disrupting the continuity” would be applicable to power, and the timeframe of how long the Infected Digimon would take to do this is rather unclear (though admittedly not too long given the urgency of the situation). It also is really questionable to scale back to Taichi and Agumon because it’s not just one singular infected Digimon disrupting the continuity, but rather a group of collective infected Digimon with no clear scaling chain.

Likewise, destroying the Quantum Sea being a multiversal feat is debatable in and of itself - it’s portrayed as just another world that Himekawa entered as confirmed in the Memory Book, and its destruction leading to the other worlds being destroyed could be more akin to a chain reaction. As Himekawa said, all worlds emerged from the Quantum Sea in a multi-layered way; destroy the source, and the rest go down with it, and there wouldn’t have to be any further strength necessary to do that beyond just universal.

Summary

The best bet is Milleniummon’s feat of splitting the time axis if you wish to argue multiversal Taichi and Agumon, but that isn’t without debate. Every other feat is either too vague and over time (Dagomon and Zeed’s feats), or questionable if it would scale to AP and likely just a hax related feat (BlackWarGreymon’s distortions and the infected Digimon), making them unviable to argue for. More talk will be had in the verdict about whether or not it’ll be enough.

Ryo Akiyama (and the headaches he causes)

If you’re unfamiliar, there’s a character that the Adventures cast interact with in-canon in the Wonderswan games known as Ryo Akiyama. He’s been the strife of so many confusing Digimon debates for years and unfortunately for us, we have to talk about him because he’s relevant here because of course he is.

The events of the first Wonderswan games featuring Ryo specifically happen between the events of Adventure and Adventure 02. We know these events do canonically occur as in Adventure 02 ep 43, we directly see the events of Ryo and Ken defeating Millenniumon. And we know the entire 02 and original cast are involved in that story and more importantly their Digimon partners are consistently given to Ryo to aid him in his fight against Millenniumon and his Dark Forces.

Before we continue though, no, this can’t be used to scale Adventures to Tamers. While Ryo does indeed interact with both casts, Ryo’s adventures all happen before he moves to the Tamers continuity. Guilmon remarks that this is his first time fighting, so he hasn’t experienced everything yet. Heck, Ryo and his Digimon partner Cyberdramon (who at this point in the story is a Jogress of Monodramon and Millenniummon) remarks that the D-Reaper, the major antagonist in Tamers, is the strongest enemy they’ve fought so far. So Tamers feats stay in Tamers and can’t be used to backscale to Adventures.

The biggest thing is how much of the current cosmology applies to these games. The question mostly applies to ENIAC who is stated to be the Digital World itself and maintains it. However, a major issue is that ENIAC’s existence and role is a direct contradiction to not only the overall lore of the franchise, but most importantly, the lore of Adventure in a post TRI world. With the advent of TRI, the Royal Knights and Yggdrasil are directly mentioned and present within the Adventure continuity and as you would have read in the cosmology section, you’d know how much ENIAC’s role overlaps with what Yggdrasil already does by virtue of being a Host Computer. As such, ENIAC will be considered, but only in reference to Adventures unique cosmology and should not be used to potentially scale the Adventure cast to the overall Digimon cosmology. How many characters actually scale to ENIAC even then is debatable as along with being a very contradictory and needless addition to the Adventure storyline, it also decided to grace us with excessive vague posting. As such it’s hard to know how much these characters truly scale to full power ENIAC as a whole. Speaking of….

Millenniummon Scaling to ENIAC

“If” or “when”, but never is

So Millenniummon is the main antagonist of the Wonderswan Ryo games. And his entire goal was to destroy ENIAC in order to gain full control of the Digital and merge all eras and all worlds into a single Digital World of his own. The issue is that Millenniummon never directly takes on ENIAC. He sends armies across the Digital Worlds and ENIAC overtime expends their power helping Ryo and Co. defend against Millenniummon’s army. The issue comes with how the game seems to imply that if ENIAC disappears, ENIAC’s power becomes Millenniummon’s power. But then when ENIAC shuts down, Millenniummon notices the world hasn’t changed due to the Atanasoff preventing him from doing so. As such the question becomes if Millenniummon got ENIAC’s power and is just being blocked by the Atanasoff, or if he didn’t really get any power at all and needed the Atanasoff destroyed first. The game is super vague on this front and as such we are not given any concrete answers. This makes scaling ENIAC like this just simply unviable and too questionable to do so (and benefit of the doubt the Adventures cast did, it would only apply to the Adventures cosmology as said before).

Digimon and Cross-Continuity Scaling

(not shown here, but you should watch Beatbreak btw)

So this is an interesting discussion in terms of how Digimon is scaled generally across the vs communities in general. So first things first, it may be obvious that this blog is strictly avoiding any sort of cross-continuity scaling, including crossovers. While they are canon to the overall multiverse, they aren’t canon to say, the Adventure continuity. For example, Tai appearing in Re:Digitize Decode with an Omegamon X would be canonical for that game, but it would not apply to Adventure (because well, he never had that in Adventures and it makes no sense for him to have it). Simple stuff like that, but it gets a bit more complicated than that and we sort of want to explain why this is such an accepted thing for this series.

The fact is that we know that these “different continuities” are specifically “different worlds” across the larger Digimon multiverse. A common thing that is seen in the community for Digimon scaling is scaling all the Digital Worlds to the same things. This mostly started with the advent of Cyber Sleuth having revealed the fact that the series operates on multiple worlds theory. Now beforehand, most had already considered that these continuities were in the same multiverse as the idea of a multiverse existed since the Wonderswan games. But what made Cyber Sleuth as well as games like Next Order and Survive more significant was Kazumasa Habu, who used multiple concepts from Digimon Adventure and other previous works as the basis for the worlds he created and actively worked towards unifying these concepts and worlds. Long story short, many other places still utilize this method of scaling for Digimon and treat the changes to cosmology as retcons. This blog is not out to say they are wrong (as such isn’t a debunk) as Digimon by default is very interpretation and worldview based. But we do believe that this is the safest and best way to handle Digimon’s scaling. Especially when dealing with such a delicate issue such as using different continuities and cross-scaling.

An example of a contradiction that would make “compositing” different Digital Worlds really difficult is in Adventures, the Digital and Human World are considered parallel and exist side by side aka the same size as each other. However, the Digital World in Tamers is clearly bigger than the human world, which is an obvious contradiction. This isn’t helped by the fact that Adventures is considered a fictional show in Tamers’ world. This makes sense why their digital worlds are different because each of them is considered a layer in the clustered digital world with each layer established to have a different time progression and laws of physics. Adventure’s digital world is simply considered another layer in them. The artbook itself also made things a little more awkward as it includes a detailed breakdown of the general cosmology of the multiverse at large. It made a point in going over how the human worlds interact with the Digital World across different points in time and how the world views of these real worlds often changed how the Digital World itself was perceived. Of course this artbook also directly mentions the existence of the layers which are other Digital Worlds and worlds in general. On top of that it mentioned many things such as the main Digital Worlds (Yggdrasil’s Digital World and Homeros’s Iliad were name dropped, but it would include Kunlun’s Shambala as well) as clustered worlds, Digital Worlds with multiple worlds within them as well as expanding on other concepts like the Net Ocean and such. The anniversary can also be interpreted in different ways, however we will of course be using our interpretation for this blog.

We also believe there are arguments that certain aspects do work the same such as overall cosmology stuff as well as Digimon Physiology. How relevant these aspects end up being varies from continuity to continuity.

Adventure: (2020) - What does it offer?

Digimon Adventure got a reboot in 2020 which features Tai and Agumon and the rest of the chosen children. While some of us on the team (and I imagine the viewer reading this) were expecting us to soft composite the two Tais…things are more complicated than they seem.

Firstly, this obviously is not the same Taichi as he goes through several many different story elements (Omegamon appears in the second episode even though in the OG continuity, he doesn’t gain access to it until much later???) There’s a lot of story changes in general that make it incompatible to combine with the original such as the events in this happen in 2020 as opposed to the OG’s 1999, so it can’t really be argued as an “expanded universe” so to speak. A (literal) huge example is while WarGreymon is more modestly sized in the original, he’s more or less a kaiju in 2020. He also gains new forms for Agumon and Omegamon not present in the original series. Even Toei considers Tai from the main Adventure series separate from the 2020 reboot with this official art. We’d be here all day listing differences, but overall, “compositing” the two Tais is very tricky, incompatible and just doesn’t work out. We’re not compositing game Red with manga Red for very similar reasons, so the same standard should apply here.

That being said, we understand people are wondering if the reboot has anything to offer Tai (within reason) that would tip the scales. Here are some of the notable feats in 2020:

  • The scope of this seems to be more Planetary than Universal.
  • This is pretty vague and being generous would likely just be Universal.
  • You can argue it is very potent existence erasure hax at least, but that’s it
  • Would just be Low Multiversal, specifically two times Universal.

Something very important we want to discuss is this one particular line about Omegamon in the 2020 series. It is said that Omegamon “surpasses countless space-times”. So what does this imply? One can assume it can be Immeasurable speed, since the statement was shown with an animation of Omegamon flying. One can also assume this means his power is above countless universes. You can assume many things with this statement… which is why it is very vague. So we can’t really get anything out of this statement, even if it does sound impressive at first glance. It’s impossible to quantify and even it was possible to, this comes from 2020’s Omegamon, not the original. We can’t just assume BoB Agumon is above this without a huge assumption and using cross timeline scaling to try and say that he’s stronger than this version of Omegamon he’s never interacted with.

Royal Knights Scaling

(The TCG art is so good man…)

So a big thing that’s common in Digimon scaling is mentioning whether a character scales to the Royal Knights or not. This is usually the avenue for many stories to scale to the higher ends of the Digimon Cosmology. This is because in many media such as Cyber Sleuth, Chronicle X, Data Squad/Savers or Time Stranger just to name a few, the Royal Knights either directly aid in dealing with a threat who would without a doubt scale to higher end cosmology such as Mother Eater, Lucemon X or Yggdrasil itself. The Royal Knights also tend to be end game antagonists whenever they take an antagonistic role, usually being the penultimate threat of a setting right before the protagonists fight the true final threat. And overall the Royal Knights are among the strongest Digimon in the franchise. This is important as Omegamon fights Alphamon in Tri (and BoB Agumon should be above that). So is the scaling clear cut? Well…not really.

When discussing Royal Knight scaling, and the biggest problem with it, is that most people scale all Royal Knights to their highest feats and scale to every version of the group. This brings up the question as to whether there are Royal Knights for each individual layer or if there is only one singular group of Royal Knights in all of Yggdrasil’s worlds that simply rotate out or replace members at some point in time. There is evidence for both ideas, however that also goes into an entire Digimon timeline discussion that is far beyond the scope of this one blog. Regardless of which side of the camp you are on, there is only one real question that remains. “Why would each version of the Royal Knights scale to the feats of different versions of them they never interacted with”. This blog has been quite honest in keeping everything contained to their continuity and as such it would be quite inconsistent to suddenly break that rule now (to be clear, we’re not trying to be stubborn about it; we just legitimately think it’s invalid in these cases). Especially when there isn’t really definitive evidence that the Royal Knights of Adventure scale to the Royal Knights of say, Time Stranger and it leads to very messy cross-scaling. Alphamon in Digimon Tri who’s incredibly stoic and silent is also clearly different from as an example

X-Evolution who talks way more in that continuity. There’s simply no evidence that Alphamon in Tri is actually the same Royal Knight as the one from Cyber Sleuth or other series (in fact the opposite is suggested), so they do NOT scale to the same feats just because they’re the same species.

This is also important to note as Digimon as a multiverse really doesn’t have a concrete timeline, as such it’s impossible to know when certain events that lead to certain scaling take place chronologically with the sole exception of the fact that we know the events of Digimon Chronicle and the stories of the Old Digital World and Project Ark would reasonably have occurred before pretty much most if not all other mainline stories. This is due to the fact that the events of these stories are what eventually lead to the overall clustering and creation of the New Digital World as confirmed in the anniversary book. Overall, there really isn’t any real concrete evidence to scale each Royal Knight to the highest feats the group has accomplished and as such we believe it’s best to simply scale them to the feats present within their own Reference Book entries and the settings in which they appear in.

Data Regeneration?

(Red vs Tai apparently)

In the penultimate episode of Adventures, Taichi and the rest of the DigiDestined are broken down into data, which is the equivalent of atoms and molecules in the Digital World. They end up in a world of information as data, where they lose their motivation to fight Apocalymon, until a pep talk from their partner Digimon brings their spirits up, they awaken the power of the Crests engraved into their heart, and Super-Evolve their Digimon and are restored in their bodies before Apocalymon.

While it’s easy at first glance to take this as a regeneration feat, there’s a few caveats. The obvious one is that this level of regeneration isn’t even consistent within the Adventures continuity; Omegamon has lost limbs before and was unable to regrow them. Additionally, this act of restoration required the power of their Crests, the same ones used for evolving Digimon further. Evolutions, even with the Crests, can run out from overuse of energy, and it’s possible the same applies to this, meaning even in the scenario it was a regeneration feat, it’s not one Taichi and Agumon would be able to spam for an entire fight.

And finally, it’s unclear if this even is a traditional regeneration feat in the first place. While the DigiDestined were indeed broken down to such a thorough level, it’s not like they took damage that reduced them to that; as reiterated, they were broken down into data, likely a form of transmutation hax, and they were even transported in a world of information, talking to each other and holding an entire conversation. Sora even says it’s a matter of ‘turning back into human forms’, which means this restoration process is more likely a form of counteracting transmutation. Incredibly useful, but doesn’t stop them from being killed in traditional ways.

Ultimately, while certainly an interesting discussion to be had over this, the mechanics are too vague to say whether this is sure-fire regeneration and not just a counter to transmutation, and even taking it literally, Taichi and Agumon can’t keep it up forever.

Script

We got one more thing for you all! TWILTY has made a script for this fight! You can check it out here. Enjoy (and obviously spoilers for the verdict).

Verdict

These two monster masters are experts at battling with their partners. With so many battles won with different moves and methods, the best way to determine the winner here would be comparing Skill, Bonds between master and monster, Versatility, Speed, and Power.

Skill

Starting with one of the easier categories to figure out, skill is definitely important in order to master their partners and friends. It should come off as no surprise that Red is considered a master trainer. Even as a ten year old, he single-handedly dismantled Team Rocket’s whole organization and became Kanto’s Champion. Even after achieving that title though, he was never satisfied as he’s always looking at ways to improve himself and his team. Heck, that’s why he holed himself up in Mt. Silver for years, doing intense training and even when he finally left that freezing mountain, he participated in the Pokémon World Tournament, battling other powerful and skilled trainers. He can even take down other skilled trainers, heck even three at once with just his Charizard. He’s been doing it for many years all the way to Sun/Moon’s era, always actively training and battling because that’s what he loves.

In contrast, Taichi and Agumon only really battle because they have to. They’re not actively training or constantly seeking to improve like Red is. Don’t get us wrong, Taichi isn’t dumb or lazy at all. He’s been shown to do on the fly strategies such as aiming at the ceiling to have steel beams drop on an enemy or faking getting angry at a friend to draw an enemy out. WarGreymon is even described as a “veteran warrior rising up to be a hero.” However, compared to Red, it becomes clear he just doesn’t quite stack up who has achieved a lot over the years. This is made more apparent when you realize Red has mastered and bonded with a full team of six Pokémon, all of them different types and not lacking in variety (likely more considering he’s caught at least the original 151) compared to Tai’s singular Digimon. Even including the Wonderswan’s game’s Cyclomon and Triceramon (who are only Adult and Perfect level respectively, meaning they don’t get the best scaling compared to WarGreymon and above), Taichi only had them in those games, implying only a brief time period and it’s still a 6 to 3 even with the most generous interpretations. Red simply takes skill without much issue.

You might think Taichi could hypothetically make it up with experience. He’s technically older than Red, being in his 40s with 02’s epilogue compared to Red in his 20s or maybe 30s in Sun & Moon, his last major canon appearance. However, there have been periods of time, some of them lasting years, where Taichi did not have Agumon (examples being Adventure’s end to 02’s beginning and Agumon said goodbye to him at the end of Kizuna before eventually coming back) and even the times he had Agumon, it’s not like he was actively fighting all the time. Compared to Red again, who’s been doing this constantly and actively improving even into adulthood, he takes this category as well.

Just to address it though, we know what you’re thinking; what if Taichi threw hands? Red never gets physical himself, Tai should just punch him, going after the master instead of the monsters, right? Well, trainers in the Pokémon world are incredibly durable too. They’ve taken attacks like Dragonite’s Hyper Beam, trainers like Drayden have physically wrestled with his Pokémon to toughen them up, Bea has actively physically trained with her fighting-type Pokémon and even Red himself has purposely had his Charizard fall on top of him to cushion the blow. To add to this, in both Legends Arceus and Legends Z-A, trainers are used to being able to dodge and avoid Pokémon attacks. Some Pokémon can come out of the Pokeballs themselves and in Scarlet & Violet, they can even autobattle without being needed to give commands. If Taichi actually tried punching Red, it would not end well for him. He likely would not go for it in general though since the only time he punched Yamato was to try and snap him out of a depressive funk and even when Omegamon was getting his limbs torn off, he did not go for Menoa herself.

Bonds

So Red takes tertiaries like skill and experience rather convincingly, but there's one thing Taichi and Agumon could possibly make up for all of this: their bonds or the relationship between master and monster, an important category to talk about since that’s what both Pokémon and Digimon are all about and could potentially shift things if they were strong enough.

Agumon has acted on his own without being needed to give commands and won many fights, likely because Taichi and Agumon trust each other so much. Afterall, Agumon’s power comes from Taichi himself, feeling his courage. Their bond together is vital for Agumon being able to evolve to further forms, seemingly healing previous injuries and getting rid of status effects. It’s thanks to Taichi that Agumon is often able to get second winds without needing to use an item, such as when he was able to achieve a new evolution with his Bond of Bravery form despite getting literally torn apart earlier as Omegamon. With the literal power of friendship, it’s possible that Taichi and Agumon could make up for the skill deficit, right?

Well the thing is, Red has an incredibly strong bond with his Pokémon as well. Don’t get us wrong, Red isn’t literally fueling his Pokémon with power like Taichi is and he needs to give commands to his Pokémon more often. Despite that though, Red and his Pokémon trust each other so much, he doesn’t need to give verbal commands and with his superior skill, having to give commands becomes less of a deficit for him. His trust in his Pokémon can let them avoid attacks more easily, land critical hits more often and even potentially tough things out from moves that would otherwise KO them. Red is also more used to supporting his Pokémon through items and synergizing with the rest of his team. He can also bring out the full potential of his Pokémon and his strong bond is why his Pokémon are able to Mega Evolve in the first place. This is a very interesting category to analyze since bonds between friend and monster are so important here. Both of them have some things the other can’t do but it’s hard to say it’d be verdict shifting. The safest option is to say that they tie.

So Taichi and Agumon couldn’t just rely on the power of friendship to get them the win as Red trusts his Pokémon the same way too. Red already has a big advantage with skill, but it’s important to see if he and his Pokémon’s abilities could make good use of them against their opponent.

Versatility & Abilities

There’s a lot to cover here, so bear with us. It should be noted we’ll be focusing on Red’s main team, not his in-rotation nor will he send out a whole army out at once because obviously Red has never done that. We’ll be mainly referring to Agumon as…well, Agumon but keep in mind we’re talking about the whole family line instead of that singular child form.

An important thing to go through is their versatility and options and it’s really no surprise Red has a lot more to throw at Taichi than vice versa. Red has at least six Pokémon he can switch between in battle compared to Tai’s singular Digimon in Agumon. Sure, Agumon can digivolve mid battle, but Tai would still mainly only have him that he must rely on with his opponent constantly going through his whole team while Red can Mega Evolve his Venusaur, Charizard and Blastoise to mix things up too.

It should be noted that once WarGreymon and Agumon Bond of Bravery come out, he would gain the power of flight, giving him greater mobility against most of Red’s team barring Charizard. That being said, Red and his Pokémon have experience fighting aerial based opponents, so this advantage is not as big as one as you’d think.

Pikachu vs Agumon

To go through each Pokémon one at a time, let’s start with Pikachu vs Agumon. It’s easy to assume Pikachu being a glass cannon would be a huge knock against him, but he has some surprising ways to keep up. With abilities like Light Screen and Reflect, he can raise his defense for both him and his team to support, meaning damaging Pikachu is harder than you’d think. He also has access to debuffs like Charm that massively decreases the Agumon family’s physical attack. His emphasis on speed and ways to raise it via Double Team and Agility make actually landing a hit on him quite tedious especially with his smaller size and Pikachu has a lot of great range and powerful moves like Thunderbolt. To be clear though, Agumon certainly isn’t helpless in this particular matchup. He’s shrugged off paralysis before, meaning moves like Thunder Wave wouldn’t last very long, especially when he gets rid of those statuses via evolving. He has plenty of attacks to hit Pikachu, and his large AOEs like WarGreymon’s Gaia Force would make avoiding things quite hard even with Pikachu’s smaller size and faster speed.

Snorlax vs Agumon

What about Snorlax? Despite his slow speed and sleepy demeanor, he might have one of the easier times with the Digimon. His arsenal for a Normal-type is huge (blizzards, shadow balls, fissures and more oh my) and could overwhelm WarGreymon and up. Putting aside the fact that he just hits very hard from his body slams to high horse power, he could also match Greymon’s large size too since he’s also a big boi. MetalGreymon and WarGreymon may wear Chrome Digizoid armor (though weirdly enough Bond of Bravery Agumon doesn’t), but they also aren’t Pokémon, so it’d be questionable to say if he would qualify as a “Steel” type and resist Snorlax’s Normal-type moves but even then, he’d still be getting hit hard despite the resistance and moves like Crunch, Wild Charge and Shadow Ball get around said resistances regardless (though to be fair, being able to fly would help him avoid moves like Earthquake). And to be clear, just because he’s the slowest of Red’s team doesn’t mean he can’t react to attacks; he’s kept up with other fast Pokémon and landed his hits before, especially with Red’s guidance.

Another big issue is Agumon's numerous fire attacks aren’t going to be very useful. He often relies on fire breaths and hard hitting projectiles but when you consider that Snorlax’s special defense is massive with a huge HP pool, actually trying to land lasting damage would be incredibly difficult even with moves like Gaia Force and Gaia Brave, especially if Snorlax just uses Rest to heal through it, uses Amnesia to buff his special defense further or uses the Assault Vest to increase it (seriously Red, Snorlax doesn’t need this!) Agumon could rely on his more physical attacks (since Snorlax’s physical defense is more lacking compared to his special) like WarGreymon’s Brave Tornado, but putting aside that puts him in danger of getting too close to Snorlax, a lot of his attacks are also imbued with fire…which isn’t great since Snorlax’s Thick Fat ability cuts fire based attacks in half. Since WarGreymon nor Bond of Bravery Agumon are really martial artists nor have moves that would qualify, they likely also could not exploit Snorlax’s Fighting-type weakness with their physical attacks. Moves like Protect could also let him scout out any potentially dangerous moves by blocking them completely and Counter lets him double any physical attacks back at Agumon.

Lapras vs Agumon

Lapras against Agumon’s forms is an interesting fight since neither has an immediate distinct advantage. While Lapras has all sorts of water-type moves that would normally be super effective against fire-types, Agumon isn’t a Pokémon and has never really shown to take super effective damage from water attacks. Plus, the Agumon family’s various fire based attacks wouldn’t be resisted because of Lapras’ ice/water dual typing. Lapras also isn’t a mobile Pokémon, so being able to avoid a lot of Agumon’s attacks is questionable and Digimon in Adventures have resisted mind manipulation before, so causing confusion with Confuse Ray is unlikely. Also because of his resistance to absolute zero, Lapras’ ice attacks likely couldn’t freeze Agumon solid even if Lapras were to hypothetically land the inaccurate Sheer Cold.

The aquatic Pokémon does have some advantages though, main one being Rain Dance which can help compensate for his lack of fire resistance by cutting the damage in half (as well as buff Lapras’ water attacks) and Perish Song could come in clutch to force an Agumon KO (even if questionable Red would go for it). Safeguard and Mist are also nice protection against status ailments should Agumon rely on some of his PSP skills.

Espeon vs Agumon

Espeon is a fairly short story vs Agumon. Neither have super effective attacks against the other. However, Espeon at least has precognition, helping him be aware and help avoid any major hits from the Agumon family. Reflect is also a nice extra barrier option to help support the team against physical attacks (especially since Espeon is rather frail physically) and Psych Up could help copy any stat buffs via the PSP items.

Venusaur vs Agumon

Finally getting into the starter trio, let’s begin with the grass dinosaur. Let’s get it out of the way; yes the Agumon family’s fire attacks would be super effective against base Venusaur. From WarGreymon’s Gaia Force to MetalGreymon’s Giga Destroyer, all of them have the potential to get rid of Venusaur easily. To add to this, the Super Healthy Kid Digipiece makes Agumon immune to the poison status effect and Taichi could always activate his Crest of Courage to wake Agumon up from Sleep Powder. Venusaur’s Grass-type attacks would likely be resisted against the fire-using Agumon family, making landing damage somewhat difficult. Thankfully, Venusaur still has other options such as Leech Seed, draining the life from Agumon and Giga Drain could help heal him too. While Venusaur also technically couldn’t poison Agumon, he can at least deal damage from Sludge Bomb and Venoshock, giving him an alternative way to attack (at least if you assume Chrome Digizoid armor wouldn’t count as Steel-type).

However, that’s when we get to Mega Venusaur and the game changes as Thick Fat cuts fire based attacks in half, getting rid of Venusaur’s previous weakness while also increasing his bulk in general. Amnesia can also double his special defense and with potential Light Screen support from Pikachu, suddenly landing lasting damage against Venusaur is really hard, especially as Leech Seed/Giga Drain keeps draining Agumon’s health, Synthesis/Ingrain constantly healing Mega Venusaur and just in-general hitting harder, making a potential war of attrition suddenly greatly skewed in Mega Venusaur’s favor. That being said, Agumon’s attacks aren’t being resisted, so it is possible for Agumon to still win here. Mega Venusaur is also potentially on a time limit if you prioritize the Legends Z-A time limit vs the normal indefinite timeframe from turn based gameplay…but so are WarGreymon and Agumon Bond of Bravery, so the Agumon family just hoping Mega Venusaur devolves isn’t likely.

Blastoise vs Agumon

Unlike his grass-type friend, Blastoise thankfully has an easier time against the Agumon family, mainly thanks to being a water-type and resisting all of the Agumon family’s fire-type attacks. While it’s unlikely his water-type moves are super effective on Agumon as they aren’t Pokémon, they should still deal a great amount of damage and Blastoise has a variety of other attacks like the never missing Aura Sphere, Dark Pulse and Rock Slide possibly causing Agumon to flinch and Flash Cannon potentially lowering his special defenses. Blastoise has other debuffs like Tail Whip, Iron Defense buffing his defense, and Aqua Ring giving him extra healing if needed. Rain Dance is a big boon as it increases the power of his water-type moves while making the Agumon family’s fire based attacks even less effective, giving Blastoise a huge boon in attrition. Whirlpool is effective in particular as not only does it limit Agumon’s movement by trapping, he’ll continuously take damage while stuck and wide open for Blastoise’s other attacks. He might not even need to as when he Mega Evolves, he hits even harder and is even more durable. It’s fair to say Blastoise would be one of the biggest troubles Agumon has.

Charizard vs Agumon

The iconic fight you’ve been waiting for. Charizard is the only one that can keep up in mobility with his flight and can literally fight fire with fire. He resists the Agumon family’s fire based attacks and it’s unclear if Agumon shares the same resistances though for the benefit of the doubt, let’s assume he does. Charizard still has moves like Shadow Claw, his various dragon-type moves and flying/normal-type moves for variety. He also has debuffs like Scary Face massively lowering the Agumon family’s speed, Smokescreen to lower accuracy and buffs like Dragon Dance and Belly Drum to max out his attack (and let’s be real, Red’s definitely using a Full Restore for that half health drop loss.)

Mega Charizard X becomes 4x resistant to all of Agumon’s fire based attacks while becoming even stronger physically than before with his dragon-type attacks being much stronger now. With this transformation, it definitely lets him keep up with Agumon Bond of Bravery since he gains a lot in defense too. Charizard has an alternative Mega Evolution with his Y form and it arguably is better for this fight as it lets him amp up his fire attacks even more with the drought it creates (though it’s possible the Agumon family could take advantage of this too). With a huge boost in special attack and special defense, Agumon would be taking more damage while simultaneously struggling to deal lasting damage back.

There is one thing that WarGreymon has a huge advantage with and it’s the Dramon Destroyers. It’s super effective against dragons in Digimon’s world and likely would be effective in Pokémon’s world too since dragons are…super effective against dragons. So Charizard would be in trouble…if he was Mega Charizard X. Putting aside the Dramon Destroyers are just more effective against dragons and not necessarily a durability negation, normal Charizard isn’t a dragon and neither is Mega Charizard Y. There’s no reason for the Dramon Destroyers to be super effective on them (and the rest of Red’s team aren’t dragons, so they wouldn’t be super effective there either). It’s also possible for those claws to be destroyed as shown in the Our War Game movie, meaning it’s possible their impact wouldn’t last very long.

So overall, Agumon would struggle the most with Snorlax and Blastoise, likely have an advantage against Venusaur (though this changes once he mega evolves) and go fairly evenly with the rest of Red’s team. With so much variety to look out for though, buffs, weather changes, debuffs, damage from all sorts of attacks and more, it’ll be incredibly difficult for Agumon to deal with six different Pokémon battles one right after the other.

Other Digimon

Cyclomon and Triceramon could hypothetically help even the odds with numbers, but they don’t really have anything noteworthy in their arsenal that could change the tides. Even then, Cyclomon is only an adult level and Triceramon a perfect level Digimon, meaning there’s a good chance they’ll get one shot just because they lack the scaling needed to keep up in stats.

To tackle Agumon’s other evolutions, there is no reason they would willingly go into the dark evolution, SkullGreymon, and Taichi can’t control him anyway (and has far surpassed his power regardless). We hesitate on having BlitzGreymon being a huge factor as he’s from the reboot and not something mainline Taichi normally has, but let’s talk about it quickly for the sake of argument. He more or less replaces his fire attacks with electric based ones, which would be advantageous on Red’s water-types and Charizard’s flying…though funny enough both Pikachu and Venusaur would have a huge advantage being resistant to electricity.

The largest Digimon Taichi has is MetalGreymon, but as the Star Wars guy says, size matters not. Considering the Pokémon world has large Pokémon too with Gyarados, Steelix, Wailord and Dynamax Pokémon in the Galar region can be taken down by normal sized Pokémon too, this means even the huge size advantage of BlitzGreymon wouldn’t be a big deal even if he was allowed.

Overall Arsenal

If there’s anything to notice? It’s that while Taichi and Agumon can technically counter tactics like status effects, and evolving mid fight can get rid of debuffs, that’s still another move they have to do. And they can’t really do much to pressure Red’s team back, since their kit is mainly about attacking rather than any support moves, making things incredibly difficult for them in a battle of attrition. Even including moves from the PSP game like Poison Attack and Status Reset to remove Red’s Pokémon’s buffs (putting aside canon Taichi hasn’t really used them, so the likelihood for them to come out is questionable), it’s stuff Red has dealt with before. Using items to clear statuses, recalling his Pokémon to remove “Slow” and he could buff his Pokémon again and make Tai waste his turn, if you think it’d be in-character for him to go for it at all.

Speaking of items though, Red has a lot from full restores completely healing his Pokémon, revives easily bringing back fallen Pokémon, Elixirs giving his Pokémon more energy should they run out of PP and holding items that have all sorts of variety to them. Tai would mostly have items from the PSP game once more, having full heals himself, SP replenishing items and holding Digipieces that give Agumon an extra shot at life (though only once) and immune to status effects. However, Red has 999 of all of them vs Taichi’s 99. Of course, it might seem a bit ridiculous that battle would drag that long, but in a battle of attrition, anything meaningful like that is vital. It’s also unclear if the Life Saver Kit would work since the PSP game is primarily a team game and Agumon would technically not have an ally here to revive him, but benefit of the doubt he could by himself with Taichi, it again doesn’t match 999 vs 99 revives and Red has more variety to revive his Pokémon from. Red also has more variety with items like berries with all sorts of effects and held items like Bright Powder giving the Agumon family accuracy problems, or King’s Rock inflicting flinching meaning the Digimon has less chances to retaliate and debuff removals.

It’s also questionable if the PSP items would matter that much as Agumon has shown to get tired several times and needs food and energy to keep fighting. Too much overuse could force him into a weaker form and spell disaster for him. If Red’s Pokémon catches Agumon while he’s in that or even worse, Koromon, the fight might as well be over. Red’s Pokémon don’t have limitless stamina either (otherwise they’d never need to visit a Pokémon Center), but Red has shown to do intense training and battling nonstop to the point of losing sleep over it. Greymon has shown to battle for hours on end before finally giving out, but that’s of course one of Agumon’s weaker forms and WarGreymon and Agumon Bond of Bravery spend much more energy and last far less. As mentioned earlier, it is possible for Taichi to help give Agumon a second wind, but it wouldn’t last forever and Red is more used to fully restoring/reviving his team too.

And on a final smaller note, regarding Digimon physiology that should apply no matter the continuity, Agumon has never been shown to hack minds or absorb the data of other Digimon (or Pokémon if you think they’re equivalent), so it would straight up be out of character and basing a verdict on that would simply be invalid. Red could also hypothetically counter invisibility using the Silph Scope.

It’s a category with a lot to talk about, but also pretty fairly clear cut too. Red and his Pokémon take versatility as he just has far more to work with compared to Taichi and Agumon. However, ultimately, even if Red and his team could triumph in skill and versatility, it wouldn’t matter at all if they couldn’t take stats, right? Well…let’s get into it!

Stats

Right off the bat, Agumon and Greymon won’t be offering anything to the fight. It’s not that they’re weak, but even the consistent island level feats of Adult level Digimon don’t stack up to various feats performed by Legendary Pokémon. From Regigigas moving continents, Reshiram affecting global weather, or Rayquaza destroying a 6 mile wide asteroid, these feats simply outclass the first two evolutions in raw power, and are Pokémon Red has far surpassed at his peak. Speed is a similar story; while Agumon may have light timing feats that Greymon would far surpass, various trainers are able to react and dodge light based attacks, with their Pokémon far surpassing and doing the same with attacks like Prismatic Laser; again, Pokémon that Red should be far stronger than. And through scaling to Alola Legendaries like Lunala or Necrozma, Red’s Pokémon would be traveling upwards of billions of times the speed of light.

MetalGreymon could give some pause, due to its status as a Perfect level and scaling to AlturKabuterimon, who destroyed the Mysterious Sacred Space that held a galaxy within; both doubling as a strength and speed feat of nearly a hundred billion times FTL, and perhaps even nearly a hundred quadrillion if one assumes the size to be a full universe. However, Red would have this beat; through battling trainers that matched the Creation Trio, Red would scale to their various cosmic level feats, including Palkia, who we know created several universes. Likewise, Dialga and Palkia created a galaxy on screen at speeds faster than AlturKabuterimon destroying the Sacred Space, and through potentially spreading their energy throughout the universe, their speeds would surpass even the high-end for AlturKabuterimon, and thus MetalGreymon. Combined with the aforementioned versatility advantage, it would only be a matter of time until the cyborg Digimon is outmatched.

To elaborate more on speed, AlturKabuterimon’s feat is technically more than four times slower than Dialga/Palkia making a galaxy in a short time (92.6 billion vs 416 billion times FTL). Still, AlturKabuterimon is still only a Perfect level, so it’s possible that Ultimates would upscale the feat and be even faster. It’s questionable if the Perfect level destroyed a full universe, but even if he did, Dialga/Palkia distorting time/space would match that with equal levity. Since it’s so close, it’s best to call speed a tie.

The main evolutions that can truly challenge Red and his team are WarGreymon and Bond of Bravery Agumon, both Ultimate level Digimon who scale to the top of the Adventures timeline. There are various ways to go about how high they scale, and in turn how high the Creation Trio scale, so we’ll be breaking it down into various low, mid, and high ends.

Low-End

Red: The dimensional rift Giratina sustained in Legends: Arceus was overlapping many dimensions and connecting to Dialga + Palkia + Giratina’s realms, the main Hisui timeline, Ingo’s timeline, and the main player’s timeline, adding up to a total of 6 times universal for Red and his mons. This is just a bare minimum, so the feat is likely even higher.

Taichi: WarGreymon and Bond of Bravery Agumon should be far above Apocalymon, who surpass threats that were already capable of reshaping the Digital World and, in his self-destruct, would have destroyed both the Real and Digital Worlds, resulting in 2 times universal for WarGreymon and BoB!Agumon. If one were to take the statement of Omegamon being 10 times stronger than WarGreymon literally, combined with BoB!Agumon performing better against Ultimate Eosmon than Omegamon, then one could argue 20 times universal for BoB!Agumon as a high-end.

Conclusion: Red would be 3x stronger than WarGreymon comfortably, but possibly up to 3.3x weaker than BoB!Agumon’s high-end. Still, Red has X Boosts to help close a power gap like that, and it’s not an insurmountable advantage that he can’t adapt and overcome it with his previously established versatility advantage in both move pools (including buffs and debuffs) and healing. It’s also far from Red’s limit as we’re not taking into account Ultra Space and other timelines for his bare minimum.

As an extra note, while Omegamon technically has a 10x multiplier statement, it only would apply to power with no clear indication it would apply to speed. Heck, even weaker class Digimon like Angemon and Angewoman have been able to keep up with Omegamon in speed, so the multiplier would not apply to speed.

Mid-End

Red: The Pokémon Cartridge Theory has many boons supporting it, and would give a value of about 350 million universes comprising the multiverse. There are two avenues regarding how the Creation Trio, namely Palkia, would scale (as it depends on whether one believes there is simply one Creation Trio or multiple). If it’s just one Creation Trio, then Palkia created all the parallel universes - simple. If there’s more than one, then one Palkia had to have been responsible for the creation of Ultra Space, as despite its more esoteric nature, it is ultimately still a dimension and part of space. Ultra Space, as established, connects to all universes and timelines within the wider Pokémon multiverse, and so might be a structure big enough to contain those 350 million universes. While it’s debatable if that size is fully accurate due to the more transit nature of Ultra Space, it works as a middle-end. Plus with how Entralink works and is connected to game worlds and Palkia is specifically stated to be able to connect all dimensions to the same space, it likely checks out regardless. Thus, Red and his mons would reach upwards of 350 million times universal

Taichi: The cosmology of the Adventures timeline, in regards to parallel worlds, has a known number of a little over 3.6 million. Unfortunately all feats regarding scaling to this aren’t as airtight. Dagomon’s fog is stated to swallow “everything”, but assuming that means the entire cosmology is rather assumptious, even knowing it connects to other parallel worlds within the multiverse. Likewise, we have no timeframe for when this would be accomplished. BlackWarGreymon’s feat of distorting the multiverse and merging them all is likely more through hax than raw power, and could have been contributed through destroying the Holy Stones that we know weakened the boundary between worlds. ZeedMillenniummon’s statement of destroying ‘all eras and all worlds’ does not have to mean blowing it all up in one go, and it’s even stated he’s still trying to destroy, supporting the idea he’s doing it through an unknown overtime method. Millenniummon’s feat of splitting the time axis is perhaps the best argument for full cosmology scaling, as all the parallel worlds have to exist within just one timeline. Thus, Millenniummon creating possibly a new timeline would include all those 3.6 million worlds. It’s still a bit debatable, of course, but benefit of the doubt would allow a 3.6 million times universal value for WarGreymon and possibly 36 million times universal for BoB!Agumon

Conclusion: Red’s arguments for scaling to his wider multiversal cosmology are more airtight and well defined than Taichi’s, and is much stronger overall; 97 times stronger than WarGreymon and 9.7 times stronger than the highest you can argue BoB!Agumon. Combined with X Boosts, this would lead to a clean strength stomp for Red.

High-End

Red: Dialga causes the river of time to flow endlessly, and is responsible for all the alternate timelines that exist within even just one universe. Due to the various references to Many Worlds Interpretation, combined with Masuda’s statement on time being infinite, this would be Multiversal+ for Red and his mons. Whether there is one Dialga or several does not matter - each universe has their own Dialga, and each universe has their own infinite timelines diverging from it. Each universe’s Dialga would have to be responsible for that. Additionally, if one were to argue Ultra Space being a bulkspace, it being able to contain an infinite number of timelines within itself would make it a higher degree of infinity, and thus around 5D, though this is an extreme high-end and not recommended.

Taichi: The only argument to get Taichi to match the above stats for Red is to argue the Quantum World being a similar higher dimensional structure; it’s the primordial and true world, where all worlds came from, and all those worlds are mere shadows in comparison. However, that does not imply true dimensional transcendence on its own, due to there being a finite number of worlds, and scaling to the Quantum World on its own is debatable. The infected Digimon were threatening to destroy it by ‘destabilizing its continuity’, through unknown methods and through an unknown timeframe. It is likely this is more so an application of hax or abilities that doesn’t translate to physical power. But for benefit of the doubt, if one were to expand that each world in the Adventures continuity has infinite timelines through Many Worlds Interpretation due to how the wider Digimon cosmology works, then maybe the Quantum World can qualify for such stats, but that still leaves an issue with scaling it to raw power. Still, for maximum benefit of the doubt, WarGreymon and BoB!Agumon would reach 5D at best.

Conclusion: Red’s arguments for higher dimensional stats are more concrete to argue cosmology wise and more concrete to argue scaling wise. If one were to dismiss higher dimensional arguments entirely (which is recommended by us), then Taichi is still reaching 36 million times universal at best to Red’s infinite multiversal levels of power - giving him a quite literal infinite power advantage.

Overall

Taichi is fighting an uphill battle here. His only argument for slightly surpassing Red in power is only if low-ends are taken into account and if one accepts a multiplier statement - without that, Red would hold a power edge. And with the mid-end, Red is many times stronger to the point of AP stomping, with the high-ends having him either infinitely stronger or matching Tai with higher dimensional arguments that, frankly, hold more water than his opponent. And while it’s possible Taichi and Agumon’s Ultimate forms can match in speed with upscaling, it’s also possible Red still holds a numerical advantage in speed with their galaxy affecting feats, and has X Boosts and stat buffs to increase the speed of his mons and debuffs slowing down Agumon even further. Also keep in mind the multiplier statement does not come from a guidebook but rather Koushiro explaining it. While he’s a smart person in-universe, it is entirely possible he could just be hyperbolic (and he has gotten information wrong like the Digital World’s size before).

At the most generous interpretation, Taichi isn’t going to be stat stomping, and being frank, he needs to in order to counteract Red’s numerous other advantages. But in the more likely scenario, Red is holding the overall advantage in stats

Conclusion

Advantages:

  • Comparable enough in power at the low-end, and surpassing in power at the mid and high-ends
  • Likely ties in speed, if not a bit faster
  • More skilled and experienced
  • Has more Pokémon than Tai does Digimon, 6 to 1
  • Snorlax and Blastoise in particular are huge problems for the Agumon family thanks to their resistances and moves
  • In general, a lot more versatile, especially with defensive moves, stat buffs / debuffs, and status effects
  • Recovery items like full restores, revives, and elixirs as well as self heal moves like Rest, Aqua Ring, and Synthesis gives Red a lot of room in a war of attrition
  • Yes, he can indeed counter Tai attempting to punch him should it come down to that
  • Pokémon Origins, Pokopia and the Legends games
  • …? Who’s Lance?

Disadvantages:

  • Mega Charizard X would be highly susceptible to the Dramon Destroyers
  • WarGreymon’s range and AOE make it difficult for Red and his Pokémon to dodge all of his attacks
  • A decent chunk of his status effects are resisted
  • Pokémon Stadium’s Beedrill animations

Advantages:

  • Somewhat stronger at the low-ends…
  • Greater range and AOE thanks to moves like WarGreymon’s Gaia Force
  • Has a good amount of counters to Red’s status effects, such as poison or paralysis…
  • Can match in speed
  • Flight grants greater mobility against nearly all of Red’s Pokémon, sans Charizard
  • Dramon Destroyers would be greatly effective on Mega Charizard X
  • Could land super effective hits on Venusaur
  • Toshiko Fujita & Joshua Seth as Tai
  • Also Tom Fahn & Chika Sakamoto as Agumon
  • Digimon Adventures and Kizuna (also not related to Taichi technically, but play Time Strangers, it’s GOATed too)

Disadvantages:

  • …but not by an insurmountable amount, and is weaker than Red’s mid and high-ends
  • Lacks any diverse abilities or defensive maneuvers to keep up with Red’s versatility
  • … but some status effects, such as stat debuffs or trapping moves, would be effective
  • Outnumbered 6 to 1
  • No solid answer against Blastoise or Snorlax
  • Has less items even with the PSP game
  • WarGreymon and BoB Agumon are on a time limit, making a war of attrition unlikely
  • Digimon Adventures Tri
  • Bandai Namco

With so much history between both combatants, there was understandably a lot going on here. Taichi and Agumon are a duo not to be underestimated, scaling to universal busting feats, potentially affecting millions of them. But when they face the strongest trainer in Pokémon, Red has them beat scaling to trainers like Gold, Cynthia and Elio who have caught and/or beaten the Creation Trio, who have far more consistent multiversal levels of power than anything in Digimon Adventures. The Digimon duo can maybe tie in speed, but that doesn’t stop Red from holding an advantage in stats.

Red’s Pokémon are also far more versatile than anything Taichi has and would overwhelm him with so many tools to throw at the duo. Snorlax and Blastoise in particular being strong counters to the fire-using Agumon family, and all of them have defensive moves, status effects, and stat buffs to press their advantage. It would also be a detriment to Taichi and Agumon if the fight were to drag on, as they can’t maintain their higher forms forever. This is important since Agumon, Greymon and MetalGreymon don’t really stand a chance in this bout, making him forced to rely on WarGreymon and Agumon Bond of Bravery. While it’s possible for Taichi to give Agumon a second wind, so can Red to his Pokémon, making a war of attrition favor the Kanto champion.

While it may seem unfair to Taichi and Agumon having to contend with six Pokémon, even if we were to limit it to just Red’s Charizard, the result wouldn’t change. While a closer fight, Charizard would still hold the power and versatility advantage by a notable margin on its own, and that’s not taking into account Red supporting his fire lizard with healing, buffs, and directing him with his superior skill.

It may be surprising, but the original Pokémon protagonist just had everything he needed to come out on top more times than not. Taichi and Agumon are an extremely powerful duo that we love, and they will give the living legend one hell of a fight. Their deep bond and speed are nothing to scoff at. But Red’s superior skill, far wider versatility, and greater level of power earned him the win here.

Tri as Taichi and Agumon might to show their Brave Hearts, the fire in Red’s heart won’t let them see Victory Road today in their last Adventure. (W)ow, our childhoods…was pretty awesome, huh?

The winner is Red and his partner Pokémon friends.

Final Tally

Red and his Pokémon (12) -

Taichi and Agumon ( x ) - Thank you for your Brave Hearts

Afterwords

Hey y’all, first and foremost, thanks so much for reading this! We spent so much time on this going through every mainline Pokémon game and Digimon Adventures media and we’re all really proud of what we made. This was a genuine blast to work on with everyone involved, from showing how much we love both Pokémon and Digimon as well as some of us getting into new things like Pokopia and Time Strangers.

Red vs Tai has always been a matchup I loved a lot. Sure, it’s easy to go “it’s Charizard vs Greymon/Pikachu vs Agumon” and that’s probably enough for some people but I always loved what it represents for both series. Red and Tai both grew up and still loved their partners a lot. We’ve all been at a point in our lives where we went “aren’t you a little too old to like Pokémon/Digimon?” But Red and Tai never stopped loving and got older to appreciate everything. So much so, their strong bonds with their partners was why we got Mega Charizard X and Bond of Bravery Agumon. It’s one of my personal favorite matchups ever and I hope this blog did it justice.

And yes…I’m aware of the result and how it differs from the norm. We legit have zero agenda to this and did this as a passion project for both Pokémon and Digimon and well, it just so happened to lean a certain way. That doesn’t mean Tai and Agumon are “lesser” characters than Red and his Pokémon nor do we think Pokémon solos Digimon (that’d be a ridiculous claim). We just genuinely thought Red came out on top here after an honest look through Pokémon and Digimon Adventures. This is the most fun a lot of us ever had with Pokémon and Digimon in vs. If you end up disagreeing with us, that’s fine, all we ask is you do so respectively and at least try and see where we’re coming from.

Thank you for reading once more and I hope you have a wonderful day!

(afterwords and art by TWILTY)

Other Pokémon And Digimon MUs We Like!

Since both Pokemon and Digimon have a lot of MUs we like (and heck even discovered during the production of the blog), we figured it’d be cool to go over them and see what some of us think of them. Whether we just generally like them or would like to see them as a future blog or even episode, here’s some of our favorite MUs from both series. As a side note, not restricting ourselves to just the canons we did for Red and Tai here, all different continuities on the table for discussing a plethora of ideas.

Pokemon

Red vs Ash (Game vs Anime)

cherry_witch

Probably my favorite same-series matchup, it has so much potential for love for Pokémon in its entirety and so many routes you can take exploring both characters and their journeys. I also think it's one of the most fascinating debates out there no matter what version or teams you use. If Yugi wasn't such a perfect Ash opponent and that episode wasn't as stellar as it was, I'd easily push for this to be on Death Battle.

TWILTY

My personal most wanted runback for Red and my favorite same series matchup. There’s a lot of fun stuff you could do with this fight and I think it works really well now that Ash is a champion himself. I think it would be fun going through their strategies and teams and skills. Ash of course already had an amazing episode vs Yugi, so I don’t need it anytime soon, but dang for one of the most iconic Pokemon rivalries, it would be really cool to see Death Battle answer it.

Charizard vs Rathalos (Pokemon vs Monster Hunter)

8bitUtopia

To many, this might seem like a pity win for Charizard. But honestly, it’s such a cool matchup outside of this. Pokémon and Monster Hunter are both among the most popular monster-focused game series, and they also both happen to be flying fire reptiles. It’s simple, yet effective. Both are iconic, and both are awesome. Plus, the size difference actually makes it a rather unique matchup! Also it would be nice to do a deep dive on Monster Hunter, especially since World retconned some stuff like the ever infamous White Fatalis eclipse feat, but I won’t say anything definitive yet until I get a chance to actually work on MonHun stuff more thoroughly.

MKF4

If there’s one thing we can always do with more of, it’s dragon fights. Despite having a handful of appearances on the series, Charizard has never received a true 1v1 focused episode, which is a shame given the dragon’s importance to Pokemon as a whole. On top of that, Monster Hunter would make a ton of sense to bring onto the show and has a lot of untapped potential, and Rathalos is without question the ideal candidate to utilize on the monster end of things. The size difference can be used to really get creative with Charizard having to weave out of Rathalos and its more physical strikes while using its own specialized abilities to try and claim the advantage, like a game of cat and mouse. But with dragons. Something no other dragon fight on the matchup market really does right now and the match has lots of untapped potential, even if it likely is a relatively clear-cut Charizard win I think this one has a lot of fun to its name.

TWILTY

This one’s cool! Monster Hunter is Capcom’s biggest series right now (which is crazy to think about) and Death Battle can bring back Charizard whenever…though hopefully it’d be nice if he could get a win haha. Personally, I think that he does, I haven’t seen a convincing MH calc that Rathalos reasonably scales to and I imagine the Sawk or Abomasnow feat is enough to AP stomp, but I know MH is underresearched some, so I’ll hold back from a definitive statement. I hope it happens one day because a good ol’ dragon fight would be really cool!

Rayquaza vs Bahamut (Pokemon vs Final Fantasy)

cherry_witch

One I've been championing for years, I think this is such a cool matchup that can really dig into the more interesting mythos of both franchises and give a lot of much needed love to the genre of JRPGs as a whole. I'd love to see how they tackle matters like what Bahamut to use or what all is fair game for Rayquaza. And hey, I'm never not going to love the chance to drone on about Hoenn over and over again.

Rina Antiqua

As a big fan of both franchises, I think Rayquaza VS Bahamut is one of the ideas I've probably wanted the longest ever since I watched the show. Even beyond just appealing to the shallow part of me wanting a cool dragon fight, I think it's a great way to delve into the wide history of both series and why they stand tall as arguably the most iconic RPG series of all time. I would personally want to use FFXIV Bahamut, partly because it might be the closest, but also because Bahamut popping out of a world-ending meteor and Rayquaza intervening is such a dope way to pay homage to both the original FFXIV shutting down and Rayquaza's history with meteors, as well as playing into their world guardian role.

8bitUtopia

Dragon kings of the sky. Epic summoning moments. Giant “f you” blasts of pure energy. Yeah, this has a lot of things I like. Final Fantasy and Pokemon are some of my oldest faves since I was a kid, since I was majorly influenced by my Millennial brother and sister. I will admit I am mostly familiar with certain Bahamuts and not specifically FFXIV, but that one works the best. Also, FFXIV deserves a reexamination in a modern VS sense. I still do not know where that game scales.

Grovyle vs Lucina (Pokemon Mystery Dungeon vs Fire Emblem)

Rina Antiqua

Fire Emblem Awakening is one of my favorite games of all time, Lucina herself being my favorite character in the series, and I have a lot of fondness for the Treecko line and memories of watching let's plays and the anime episodes of Explorers of Sky way back. I think tackling a subsection of Pokemon as unique as Mystery Dungeon would be fun for the show, and be a great way to celebrate how both games really pushed beyond the norm of what Nintendo stories can be. I think it'd also be a great way to really lean into some RPG elements (one of my favorite ideas being the fight starting with both of their map sprites / icons moving towards each other like how you would in a battle encounter for either). I'd love to share my love of Fire Emblem and gain a greater love for Mystery Dungeon through this.

Cherry_witch

While I admittedly don't have much experience in Fire Emblem, it is such a treat to me to see a game as near and dear to my heart as the Mystery Dungeon franchise get so much attention in a matchup like this. I think there's a lot to be said about how much these games pushed forward what Nintendo games could do with their stories around a similar time frame, and I'd love to expose more people to how much that is true with PMD, and learn that for myself with FE.

greymerlion2/Luz

This one actually grew on me quite a lot after dipping my toes into Awakening, I could immediately see how cool the shared aesthetic and style would be and the potential for unique visuals with both games’ UI. I also think it’d be a cool way to bring FE back for another episode using one of its breakout characters and getting to feature an as of now unexplored subseries of Pokemon on DB.

Darkrai vs Luna (Pokemon vs My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic)

MKF4

Darkrai vs. Luna is a match I used to not be all that fond of, but it has grown on me significantly over time. Darkrai’s nightmare abilities get absolutely absurd with the animation potential, and the Dream Realm in My Little Pony is extremely fleshed out and developed in its workings and rules, while also being entirely willing to lean into the bizarre just as much as Pokemon. Combining the ever-shifting Dream Realm and the Infinite Hallway alongside Darkrai’s nightmares out of things like Pokken Tournament has the potential to become utterly insane, as the two dreamwalkers brawl for control over their realm and to purge the other from their domain as the background changes and bends around their clashing wills. Add onto that things like Mega Darkrai and the Elements of Harmony or Tantabus, and the two are just perfect opponents for each other that can match each other’s escalation and tricks blow for blow for blow. It helps that both of them have abilities for days, making it where there’s pretty much no limit to the imagination on what you can do with these two. With so many options, it would be a nightmare of a slugfest the likes of which really no other “dream” matchup can be similar to right now.

TWILTY

AKA me vs MKF4, Gojo vs Sukuna style. Jokes aside, this is a cool matchup! I like it a lot since Darkrai has a lot of stuff to pull from. I’m not entirely sure who would win because I wanna do a deeper dive on Darkrai specifically more, but I like this MU even more with Mega Darkrai and I think I’d be down to a duo blog with MKF4 sometime.

Giratina vs Magolor (Pokemon vs Kirby)

Blue Igneous

Considering I was the person who came up with this idea years ago, seeing it get as big as it's gotten is quite the marvel. Giratina is my favorite legendary (because I’m right) and Return To Dreamland is one of my favorite platformers, so seeing these two get to shine would be great. Having dimensional clashes with Another Dimension and the Distortion World is just objectively cool, and there’s a lot of miscellaneous attacks in Giratina’s arsenal that bounce really well off of the various elemental and outright ridiculous powers Magalor has (imagine Draco Meteor being sucked into a black hole). I think it can work for both pre and post redemption Magalor, since you can either lean into the Master Crown or his Magalor Epilogue stuff for cool escalation, you can also have stuff like Origin Giratina VS the Lor Star Cutter. Maybe have a dissatisfying vibe (as in writing impact not quality) for the ending given their respective redemptions making “killing the bad guy” here not seem right. Overall a fun idea with a lot you can do. Glad to talk about it.

SpaceJellO

This one just works so well with the obvious trippy and interdimensional setpieces for their battles being Distortion World and Another Dimension. It works especially with the initial scale of the Lor Starcutter fighting Giratina's Altered Forme before transitioning to the Master Crown and Magolor Epilogue stuff with Giratina's Origin Forme. The music would be insanely cool and easy to work both their themes into, and the cosmic power interactions would be fun to go over. Plus, it lets you get into the depths of the lore for both series. Genuinely wouldn't mind seeing this one.

MKF4

Another match that has been growing on me quite a bit. The Distortion World and Another Dimension is a really good comparison that I feel silly not thinking of sooner, and make for excellent backdrops to the fight. Magolor generally has a lot more abilities than most Kirby characters, so he can easily have the tools to make for a fun fight to bounce off of Giratina’s powers and forms, with things like the Lor Starcutter and Ultra Sword to help collide with Origin Forme. I’d prefer to focus more on their redemptions and who they are today, such as Giratina’s role in bringing down Team Galactic and Magolor destroying the Master Crown, and I think that just gives even more fun vibes and lore to work with for both. While I’d prefer a Magolor win, I have to admit that currently I’ve got to side with Giratina’s raw power and generally having the tools to keep up with Magolor’s tricks, let alone being far more experienced and likely skilled. Still, with so many abilities to dish out, two mind-boggling worlds to incorporate, and some surprisingly deep themes from Kirby and Pokemon of all things colliding, it has all the makings to be something really fun!

Lugia vs Mothra (Pokemon vs Godzilla)

cherry_witch

One of my more recent passions, I love the idea of these two majestic guardians going toe to toe in a much more awe inspiring and graceful type of battle than a typical kaiju one. Their respective roles as protector gods I think really compliments the intended metaphors and origins of both in a way that feels so unheard of in most suggestions. Easily one of my favorite suggestions for both franchises and one I'd adore looking deeper into down the line.

8bitUtopia

I’ll admit, I love this more for Mothra than Lugia. Mothra is absolutely one of my favorite Godzilla kaijus, right up there with Godzilla and King Ghidorah. And I’m more of a Ho-oh/Pokemon Gold guy than I am Lugia. Honestly, I didn’t even like this matchup that much at first. But after hearing a good friend talk about it, I slowly grew to like it. It’s nothing too deep, basically one of my very first memories as a 3 year old kid was that I watched Pokémon the Movie 2000 and I somehow have clear memories of it despite being, well, 3. Thinking back on it, I most likely loved Pokemon because of that movie, and I loved playing the games with my older brother and sister. Then there’s Godzilla, and by extension Mothra. I’ve loved that for as long as I can remember. I know there’s themes and stuff (whew), but I think my main appeal with this is nostalgia. I told you, it’s not that deep. But sometimes, simple things are what compel me to like stuff, what can I say? Oh and debate-wise, it’s surprisingly easy. If Lugia scales to CT stuff, they win. If not, the main Mothras (Showa, Heisei, or Monsterverse) should win.

Zygarde vs Mothra (Pokemon vs Godzilla)

Rina Antiqua

Zygarde has been one of my favorite Legendaries for a while, in part because of nostalgia for the XY anime. While I haven't delved my toes into Godzilla as much as I'd want to, I really like Mothra and the concept behind her. I think this match plays best into what I like about both and the guardians of the natural world's order, and Zygarde has a lot going on between its flight, various attacks, and forms that I can see it fighting Mothra in a really cool way, as well as being pretty big in the anime that size isn't an issue for me. On the flip side, that size allows Mothra to do a lot of cool Kaiju moves, like dragging Zygarde along the ground and causing lava to spew out. Especially given Zygarde's relevancy now, I think it'd be pretty perfect for a DB episode.

TWILTY

I’ve been searching for a good Zygarde matchup and I think I really like this one. It’s cool! I dunno who wins exactly, but I think bringing in Zygarde, especially after Legends Z-A would be amazing with how much juice he’s got. I even like it a bit more than vs Lugia (though that match is cool too) and think the animation for it would be really cool. I’d like to watch more Godzilla movies myself to fully invest but I wouldn’t mind this matchup at all down the line.

Digimon

Jonouchi VS Yamato (Yu-Gi-Oh! VS Digimon Adventures)

greymerlion2/Luz

Dude fuck yes. I remember back when I was early into Adventure joking about this MU with a friend that it was just blonde friends of the MC, but it does actually go deeper than that. I like the comparison of them initially being at odds with the MC but gradually developing an ironclad friendship with them that would see them through even the worst of times, as well as their devotion to their younger siblings that gives them the courage to fight. Also Gabumon’s the goat.

TWILTY

Holy shit a good Yamato/Matt matchup that isn’t discount Red vs Tai. I really dug this matchup once my good friends explained to me and I think it’s my favorite for both now. The fight animation I can just see is really cool too. Debate-wise, I think with high ends of Adventures stats, Yamato could likely AP stomp unless you’re really generous with Joey too, but he has a lot of good spell and trap cards and is really good at stalling (as well as being incredibly lucky haha). I don’t think Yamato has an answer to the Time Wizard turning MetalGarurumon back into Tsunomon, but who knows.

Ulquiorra VS BlackWarGreymon (Bleach VS Digimon Adventures)

greymerlion2/Luz

Unless I’m missing an old Reddit post or vs forum thread, I’m pretty sure I came up with this match after finishing 02 back around early 2025. I had been looking for a BWG matchup that plays more into his simplistic fighting style (though Mewtwo has grown on me since), and I thought Ulquiorra matched him really well while also being an actually cool thematic comparison that can play into a fight. I adore the idea of two ‘hollow’ characters whose stories revolve around coming to understand the depths of the soul/heart. I also think BWG plays really well into Ulquiorra’s “Animal I Have Become” energy without diminishing the significance of his character.

Dragonmasterxyz

Quite a new MU that has popped up after the release of Ichigo vs Yusuke and I will say this is my favorite for both characters. Two entities who represent nothingness who at the end of each other their lives learn what it means to have a heart. Of course you could go deeper into it, but the point is these two have quite a few similarities. It also helps that both have relatively simple movesets so a fight doesn’t have to delve into more complex abilities and just straight hands.

Megaman.EXE & Lan VS Gallantmon & Takato (Mega Man Battle Network VS Digimon Tamers)

BluBlader (#1 MOST WANTED EP RIGHT HERE.)

If you want a digital matchup straight from the 2000s, this is the way to go, two simple schoolkids and their digital best buddy. A duo matchup that can bring out the full potential of both sides with a full in-depth look on both the unique worlds and stories of MegaMan Battle Network and Digimon Tamers. Whether it be comparing Battle Chips and Digimon trading cards, Digivolution and the various forms Hub has (Style Change, Double Soul/Cross System, Beast Out), and especially comparing Cross Fusion/Full Synchro and Gallantmon/Gallantmon Crimson Mode. Yes, you can get a big arsenal clash, plenty of form progression, and a grand fusion battle climax. Not to mention playing off the friendships between Lan and MegaMan as well as Takato and Guilmon, given both bonds offer benefits of synchronization and fusion as well as unique capabilities on both ends. Also both duos are just really fun characters on their own and especially together, so it'd be both sweet and badass to see how far both bonds are pushed in this fight.

(Also I helped out with a pitch for this matchup. Wish me luck in making this matchup happen as a DEATH BATTLE! episode!)

8bitUtopia

I remember really getting into this matchup around 2020 to 2021-ish. And man, after watching both of their series, this absolutely is such a banger. It’s probably my favorite idea for Digimon right now, but my tastes are very fluid. It just makes so much sense. It also helps that MegaMan.EXE is the winner of the very cool MegaMan Battle Royale way back. Tamers and Battle Network also really complement each other a lot, and an analysis for both would be so dope. Debate-wise, I don’t know who wins, actually. So it’d be pretty darn fun to try and rewatch and replay everything both got, and do a reexamination for both their series. Like that wacky EXE calc in the official DEATH BATTLE! episode, wonder what’s that about.

Bass.EXE VS Beelzemon (Mega Man Battle Network VS Digimon Tamers)

Dragonmasterxyz

While I quite like the earlier Lan vs Takato, I do think I like this the most out of the two Battle Network vs Digimon matchups. These two have that fun edgy vibe alongside the idea that this MU becomes a type of “eat or be eaten” type of fight with both being able to absorb others to gain their abilities. Also, I just think Beelzemon has much more to talk about in terms of abilities compared to say, Gallantmon thanks to all the Digimon he has canonically absorbed.

TWILTY

I think both Battle Network vs Digimon Tamers matchup works really well, but I’ll give a slight edge to this one just for the fun edgy vibes. The matchup is just really cool and I’d love to see Tamers and Battle Network be talked about more. Debate will entirely depend on if that one Battle Network manga speed feat checks out because Tamers’ Digital World is about 900x bigger than a normal universe iirc, but who knows, I’d like to see a blog on either BN vs Digimon pairing one day.

Yu Narukami VS Takumi Aiba (Persona 4 VS Digimon: Cyber Sleuth)

TWILTY

This one is cool though I imagine it’d be a somewhat hard sell nowadays since Cyber Sleuth isn’t in the limelight anymore haha though maybe that Persona 4 remake could renew interest. I imagine Narukami cosmology stomps and just has better abilities (though Aiba certainly isn’t lacking). Still, I think this is Narukami’s best matchup in my opinion and I’d be down for it in the future.

Gogeta VS Omegamon (Dragon Ball VS Digimon)

BluBlader

Hey, my first ever submission to the DEATH BATTLE! Champion Ballots! Wonder how that's going-

Jokes of getting blindsided by Vegito Blue mains in FighterZ aside, this matchup is simple but sweet. Two incredibly powerful fusions, what more could you want? A pretty good exploration into the greater stories and lore of Dragon Ball and Digimon, while packing a visually high-scale battle unlike any other by opening up all the stories both fusions have been involved in.

Dragonmasterxyz

Another favorite of mine. Just seeing both fusions go all out, pulling out each their various transformations and abilities would just be fun. Not to mention how well the fight could escalate with each transformation. This fight kinda just speaks for itself with how hard it could go.

Blue Igneous

I am legally obligated to talk about this one. Fun idea, not too thematic of course and definitely carried by vibes, but it has that hype moments and aura energy to it. Complimentary of course. There isn’t really much to say here, it’s as simple as it is cool. Imagine Gogeta taking it sticking to canon (plus GT and Fusion Reborn if you wanna expand a bit) VS Adventures Omnimon. Compositing both probably pushes it in Omnimon’s favor, though Dragon Ball Xenoverse and Heroes could do with reexamination nowadays, especially with Xenoverse 3 on the way.

TWILTY

Watch me come aliveeee, wait wrong matchup technically. ANYWAY, yeah, this fight is easy to understand, fusions that have movies that came out around the same time. I think I’m more partial to the canon Goku & Vegeta vs Taichi & Yamato from Adventures because it works so well there. That being said, I wouldn’t mind the composite version just because there’s a lot you can do there too. Fun matchup either way I hope can happen one day.

8bitUtopia

Pure nostalgic awesomeness. Need I say more? It’s two fusions debuting from movies, man. As for the debate, it purely depends on what you use, so there’s that.

Agent VS Nahobino (Digimon: Time Strangers VS Shin Megami Tensei V)

Dragonmasterxyz

Probably my favorite Digimon MU idea. Digimon and SMT are really a match made in heaven when you consider just how similar both verses actually are (If Cyber Sleuth is most like a Persona title, Time Stranger is very much so built like an SMT title). This also allows for probably the closest we could get to a Digimon “army fight” with Agents Digimon vs Nahobino’s Demons. Ending in a Jupitermon Wrath Mode vs Nahobino (Both in a form where they are merged with a god) is enough to sell me.

TWILTY

I still need to finish Time Strangers myself (Beelstarmon, you will be mine!), but this matchup is rad as heck. I really like SMTV and really am enjoying my time with Time Strangers, so this is weirdly a perfect pairing for me. I imagine Digimon would have a hard time against SMT stats, but I think there’s so many cool power interactions and army fight shenanigans, I don’t care too much if it’s one sided. I think this or Gogeta vs Omegamon (composite) are the matchups to go for a Digimon as a whole franchise blog.

8bitUtopia

I will admit, I haven’t played Time Stranger yet (my older brother keeps urging me to get it and yes I will eventually get it lol). And this is a Pokemon and Digimon blog. But I just want to talk about how much I love SMTVV. I was one of the few people who genuinely enjoyed SMT V. Yes, it was kinda rough, but I loved so many things about it. I played it for a very long time, and I distinctly remember defeating Shiva after 30 minutes straight. That was Normal mode only, by the way. SMT V is a game I always back on with fondness, because the battle system, mechanics, and demons were all so interesting. Then Vengeance came along and I love it even more. They really improved everything about the game and I think that’s so cool. So yeah, needless to say I would absolutely love Nahobino in a VS show. And I do love Digimon and will eventually try Time Stranger, so this is one I’m gonna look forward to.

Pokemon VS Digimon

Mewtwo VS BlackWarGreymon

BluBlader

Feeling up for a Pokemon VS Digimon matchup, but a good bit more existentially thematic? This is the matchup for you. A peculiar matchup that can represent Digimon Adventure 02 as well as a pretty damn iconic portion of the Pokemon anime, this fight between artificial Pokemon and Digimon is pretty great to cover a more life-questioning vibe of a fight based off their stories in the anime, while also covering the sheer power that the artificial legendary Pokemon and Mega-level Digimon can carry with them.

TWILTY

Took me a bit to like this MU just because I imagine a lot of people are tired of Pokemon vs Digimon, but it finally got sold to me well and I’d be down for it. Both anime Mewtwo and Adventures BWG have a lot of parallels and of course would be a cool fight animation. Debate-wise, it entirely depends if you think Mewtwo scales to creation trio and anime-wise, the only way he does is via Ash who’s a whole other debate haha. That being said, if Mewtwo is soft-comped with games, he definitively scales via being a superboss in HGSS and Rainbow Rocket where I haven’t heard an honest good counterargument against. Of course, this brings into question what BWG would get via compositing, so who knows really.

8bitUtopia

Honestly, I still really like this MU. It’s a classic, and I love both Mewtwo and BWGM a lot, especially their original anime incarnations. I’ve actually worked on a BWGM blog before, so this is something I’d genuinely be open for because I know how cool BWGM is. Ideally you should focus on Movie/Anime Mewtwo and 02 BWGM, and that’s how I’d personally do it if I were in charge of my own VS show, lol. As for who wins, I think if you stick with anime only for both, BWGM should win, but I’m not sure yet. Composite is unideal but if that’s taken into account then I don’t know who wins.

Lucario VS Renamon

greymerlion2/Luz

It’s not exactly high art but like yeah, there’s a reason this was a common enough request to be an episode, they have similar aesthetic and energy, especially with Renamon’s Tamers counterpart. Which is like, 95% the reason most people would care about her lol. It’s fascinating to look back on a time when this was a popular enough idea to get both a OMM and DB. Unfortunately the latter episode is rather lackluster to put it mildly, and basically remembered for “woah isn’t it crazy DB flashed porn in an episode” we know bro. It’d be interesting to see a redux of it done by anyone with Ruki and Renamon vs a Lucario trainer (which if you want him to Mega evolve would basically just be Cynthia, Korrina, or Emma), but I’m personally ok with it laid to rest.

TWILTY

Honestly still a fun matchup…just wish the episode was better haha. I feel like it’d be really cool with a longer modern animation, sprite or 3D. I’d still be down for a rematch, though maybe not as an episode. With a base form Lucario vs Renamon, the verdict should still be right. If they were allowed to go all out though with evolutions? Honestly, it’d still be a tough call since Cynthia has a Lucario and scales to the CT as well. Tamers hasn’t been fully researched though, so I can see Renamon clutching with her Ultimate forms.

Comments

  1. AnonymousJune 9, 2026 at 9:53 AM

    5D Wargeymon? Yeah.....no. You should have really read the Gogeta vs Omni-mon G1 Blog. Cause that scaled Digimon WAY different than this one.

    ReplyDelete
  2. FinchJune 9, 2026 at 9:57 AM

    Good work on the production but jesus christ that downplay of tai is absolutely ridiculous. It doesn't feel like you guys were fair in your interpretation at ALL especially with how red was given essentially everything.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousJune 9, 2026 at 10:02 AM

    Wargreymon directly scales to people who reshaped the entire digital world, a multiversal structure on infinitelly higher scale than the pokemon multiverse.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJune 9, 2026 at 11:54 AM

    I am not very familiar with scaling for either series, but it's refreshing to see Red get the W for once in this age old debate. Fantastic quality with a lot of passion poured into the blog, very well done.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousJune 9, 2026 at 1:25 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousJune 9, 2026 at 1:26 PM

    No... Just no.

    DB's Omni-Man vs Bardock was more convincing than this blog.

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousJune 9, 2026 at 1:55 PM

    While Red has a better argument for it than Ash ever did, I wish Pokemon fans stopped scaling every character to the creation trio + arceus, you guys do this every matchup without fail

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousJune 9, 2026 at 4:47 PM

      It's still a valid scaling.

      Delete
    2. AnonymousJune 10, 2026 at 4:43 AM

      Red maybe fought Gold and maybe put up a good fight and maybe Gold had an Arceus from a Toys R Us promotion and maybe Gold brought Arceus to fight Red and maybe Arceus wasn't nerfed despite it being explicitly stated - and key part of the plot in the 4th gen - that Legendary Pokemon are weaker when caught (that whole business with the Red Chain.)

      Five maybes about a fight that was never even canonically confirmed to happen is the exact opposite of valid scaling.

      Delete
  8. AnonymousJune 9, 2026 at 4:46 PM

    I hope someone does an Ash vs Red blog someday.

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousJune 9, 2026 at 6:45 PM

    REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDTOOOOOOOS
    Taisura....

    ReplyDelete
  10. HayabusaJune 9, 2026 at 11:56 PM

    I saw Charizard vs Rathalos, and sadly that was the only monster hunter vs pokemon one on here, but may I ask what y'all think about Shagaru Magala vs Eternatus?

    ReplyDelete
  11. EficienteJune 10, 2026 at 6:57 AM

    I disagree with the Creation Trio scaling:

    A note in Team Galactic's hideout states them to not use their full power when captured with Pokeballs, making them un-scalable when owned by a trainer. That takes out the arguments of the Red fight in Heart Gold and Soul Silver, Cynthia fights, and the Cyrus from Team Rainbow Rocket.

    The latter of which btw, owns PKMN that can make a universe, and yet didn't actually used them to create his own universe yet. That's his main goal, and it's still a work in process while having everything he needs for it. He needs to defeat you and then maybe he will get to it in the future. To his credit, he believes the universe he is on right now might be the perfect universe he wanted to create (But he could not have created it before being stopped, bc doing so destroys the prior universe, and he was sent back to his home universe when defeated here). But if he has Palkia and Dialga, can't he just use them to tell him if this is his perfect universe? Unless Palkia and Dialga are limited in that regard as his PKMN. It would make sense if Cyrus was unable to create a universe right now bc his Palkia and Dialga cannot do it in their current states, otherwise, when defeated and sent home, what's stopping him from just using Palkia and Dialga to destroy his universe and create his perfect universe?

    Lastly, it's implied that the Giratina and Palkia/Dialga are holding back bc they want Dawn/Lucas to show their worth, their bond with their Pokémon, and stop them:
    *Prior to the Giratina battle: "Now let's go meet Giratina! Giratina is enraged because the two worlds are endangered. [...] But there's nothing to fear. You can defeat Giratina and show the tight bond you share with your Pokémon. Or you can demonstrate how much you want it to join you. If you secceed in doing either, Giratina will understand."
    *Prior to the Dialga battle: "Go on, [Dawn/Lucas]. Face up to the Pokémon! Listen to its heart. Understand its thoughts. The mythical Pokémon seems to be entrusting you with stopping it..."
    *Prior to the Palkia battle:
    **"It's impossible to tell if it is enraged or saddened... But to me, Palkia appears to be waiting for you, [Dawn/Lucas]... It seems to be challenging you as a test... Go on, [Dawn/Lucas]. Face up to Palkia! Listen to its heart. Understand its thoughts. Palkia is out of control after being dragged out by the Red Chain and forced to use its power. Palkia seems to be entrusting you with stopping it..."
    **"You've got to help that Pokémon! It's suffering from being dragged out by Team Galactic!"

    ReplyDelete
  12. AnonymousJune 10, 2026 at 7:55 AM

    i've gotta ask did none of the 12 people working on this blog even try to push back against red getting arceus scaling with that weird logic? Seriously how did 12 people all come to that conclusion?

    ReplyDelete
  13. AnonymousJune 10, 2026 at 8:32 AM

    Nice biased blog. Why do Pokemon fans like scaling everyone and everything to the Creation Trio when it's wonky to begin with? Meanwhile, Tai's WarGreymon can harm the physical body of the embodiment of anti-Evolution.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Spirit of The Afternoonstar June 10, 2026 at 9:43 AM

    That was a great blog
    Was one of my anticipated blogs of the year and it did not disappoint!

    ReplyDelete
  15. AnonymousJune 10, 2026 at 11:07 AM

    Excuse me but why on god’s green earth are we using a event distributed pokemon, giving it to Gold, assuming Gold kept that event Arceus and used it against Red to chainscale? What?

    No offense btw I can tell alot of work was put into this

    ReplyDelete
  16. AnonymousJune 10, 2026 at 7:25 PM

    el blog mas accurate que he visto en mucho tiempo, saludos

    ReplyDelete

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